


Eden's Chosen

by Mercale



Series: Legend of Vascaroon [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Character Death, Epic, Gen, Hyne, Legend of Vascaroon, Post Game, Precognitive Dreams, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-16
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-20 08:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercale/pseuds/Mercale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wars have finally ended and peace has settled over the world. There is finally a chance to make things better. Except fate does not release its hold over its toys so easily. Some ghosts do not linger in memory alone. And some battles aren't about armies and planning. They are about a small group setting out to fulfill what they were always meant to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Well, about time I got to this. Things have been complicated in my life lately, and thus this has been delayed. But it is here now, and so begins the next phase of Nida's journey. I will note, though, that I do not intend to keep this style of writing through the whole story. Just for this prologue, and potentially for any intermission I might require.

Everyone has one great story in them. Okay, so maybe not, but it is what I've repeatedly heard throughout my life. Everyone has one great story that they create. Or maybe that they live. It can span minutes, hours, or years, and it's never a solitary journey. One person's story mingles with another, caught up in the greater story we know as life itself. We all have our places in the story, weaving in and out. All of us are the main characters in our own stories, but when woven into the larger whole we may be a side character or a member of a mob, or of no consequence at all. 

Most of my life I felt like I was in that last group. I was born, my parents died, I was adopted, and I lived quietly in Winhill with my mother in what amounts to obscurity. I was Nida Nomura, fated to live and die in a small town, maybe making my life growing flowers or something. Things were simple, and at night I dreamed of flying, soaring high above the world. In those dreams I was strong, I was important. I was a catalyst of change. Little did I know that someday it would all be true. My dreams were—are—prophetic, though I didn't know it then; wouldn't for many years. Every day, though, was quiet and peaceful. I longed for something new to happen. I have never been careful when I wished, and predictably a change came that I didn't like. My mother, Daphne, grew ill, and she didn't get better. Every day was worse, for all that my dreams stayed the same. When at last she passed I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Neither did the people of Winhill. I was not the first orphan they had to deal with, but there was no one willing or able to take me in. So I was dealt with the same way all orphans my age were: I was sent to a Garden. Not the nearby Galbadian Garden—it was too militarized for the Mayor's taste—but to Balamb. There I would live and grow, become my own man, able to care for myself once I graduated. My mother's house was held in trust for me in Winhill, because I swore I would return. That I would protect the town I loved with what I learned. 

Balamb, I suppose, is where my story changed. Went from being something slow and peaceful to something frantic and strained. I trained, hard, daily, and guided by my closest friend—the one who would be my lover and my betrayer—I found a place there that was almost sedate. But everything changed. I guess that's covered, or will be covered, in the history books though. They call the one I was most changed by 'Hyne's War' now. Not because it was really religiously based, but because of the goals of the Zebalgans and their ruling council. I learned so much at Garden: to fight, to kill, to struggle to be something. I was hardly noticed until my minor role in the Second Sorceress War, where I flew the mobile base of Balamb Garden. But it was after that, in the war against the Zebalgans, that my name became more commonly known. I was, after all, the Heir of Vascaroon. The one with weighty blood who saw the future. Legend said one of my blood would guide the Zebalgans to the body and greater magical power that Hyne had owed the world. The Zebalgans wanted me to work for them, my lover among their number pressuring me towards their ends. The Garden Forcers wanted me out of Zebalgan hands, and held my loyalty. 

The worst part was that, when all was said and done and my lover lay dying in my arms, and by my own hand, my life fell apart. Irvine, my friend and student, had stepped up and claimed what I had never wanted, what I had hated. He was the Heir, I a simple cousin and apparently cheap substitute. All that fighting and suffering for nothing. War went on around me and I could barely keep up. War swelled and fell, holding us as the winners in the eyes of history. But what we lost...

When all was said and done I found myself in Galbadia Garden as SeeD Commander, with the infamous Seifer Almasy as my second. It was almost amusing, still is, to realize that one of my closest friends was once public enemy one, and once tried to kill me. It was in his hands I left Galbadia Garden, knowing that someday he would be the Headmaster others suggested I be. I knew another chance like that would never come, and I hadn't hesitated to see myself passed over for another. The hunger for recognition I had before the war had not survived long past my first dose of serious attention. The chance that was given me for several months of recovery from everything that had happened was too tempting to pass up. The call to return to responsibility was too easy to ignore. 

I hadn't been expecting the call that had cut that peace short. The job. The new dreams and old memories that resulted from it. If I had... Well, I suppose I would have done it anyway. An order is an order, and I had no reason to say no. 

How was I supposed to know that my major role in history wasn't over yet? Well, maybe it's arrogant to say that now. It's been, what, a week since everything started? But there is just this feeling, deep in my gut, that says things are beginning again, or maybe truly for the first time. But, m ore than anything, the dreams tell me that a new storm is rising, and if I don’t' face it, it will sweep me and all I love away. 

Hyne help me, let it be wrong. But, in case I'm not, I've chosen to start this. A collection of my thoughts and experiences, uncensored. It runs counter to all my training to risk potentially sensitive information like this, but I want to be remembered as I am. Or at least as I see myself. Maybe it will help it all make sense later. Maybe some day I'll find someone to entrust this to, as Elijah gave his own journal into my hands. Maybe instead it will be a stranger.

In that case, know this. My name is Nida Sheya Nomura, Rank A Elite SeeD of Balamb Garden, former SeeD Commander of Galbadia Garden, and once the leader of the allied air forces during Hyne's War. I have killed and saved men. I have loved and lost and given up hope to love again. I have, so I am told, the blood of Vascaroon, an ancient prophet, running through my veins. 

And I think that last night, for the first time, I dreamed my own death.


	2. Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the prologue actually is written by Nida about a week after this first chapter. I'll try to note just where it occurs, but I would hope it is notable. Anyway, here's the beginning of the end.

He felt like floating. His body was weightless in the darkness, cradled in a cushion of clouds. Clouds that both buoyed and restrained him, a cradle that left him floating yet kept him from moving. It was a sensation both pleasant and upsetting at once. It made it feel like the whole world was passing around him in the dark, and the restraint upon him was maddening. The oddest thing, though, was how familiar it felt to be held like this. There was warmth to the clouds, and as he tried to push towards that warm, a sound cut through the darkness. 

“Save it for later.”

The voice, the words, the snark that was inherent in it all was thick with Seifer Almasy, and that realization made his eyes shoot open. A, no the, big mistake of the da. No sooner did he try to open his eyes than he was faced with a painful, mind piercing light that made him shout in pain and throw an arm—an arm that screamed in pain from the motion—over his eyes. Seifer, of course, chuckled at the motion. Damn bastard enjoyed his torment, always had. That was why he worked so hard to not let Seifer knock him out in a fight. Still, the pain told him something. It was a pain that told him this was either due to too much drinking, some unrealized head trauma or GF related mental damage.

The former wasn't likely because he wasn't prone to drinking, the latter unlikely because Siren hadn't bothered to speak up to protest the idea that she could ever do anything to harm him, intentionally or otherwise. Which meant that head damage, despite the lack of a pain beyond that the light gave him, was the most likely cause to whatever was happening. Not that a blow to the head made much sense either. Still, training told him not to take the potential for injury lightly, and his hands immediately moved to feel for any lumps Seifer might have inflicted upon him. 

“Hold still, dammit!” Seifer barked, his grip around Nida's body tightening. Well, that at least explained the sensation of floating. Cautiously Nida opened his eyes enough to peek out through his eyelashes and with blurry vision confirm his position in Seifer's arms. In the grand scheme of things that wasn't so bad, especially seeing as Seifer had at least chosen to carry him bridal style instead of over his shoulder. Yet he didn't know why he was being carried, and quickly decided that he didn't care if there was a chance someone was going to see him being hauled around by the Galbadia Garden SeeD Commander like this. 

“Couldn't have picked a better fucking place, could you? Maybe a resort town or something? Why, for the love of Hyne, the middle of motherfucking Centra of all fucking places?”

Nida had no answer for the questions seeing as he had no clue what Seifer meant. Centra? Why would he be there? Or in a resort town for that matter? The last thing he remembered was his apartment in Esthar, a warm body at his side, and his phone ringing in the middle of the Hyne damned night. Wait, no... that wasn't right, was it? He remembered the caller was Squall, cutting in to his mandatory vacation time for something. What had it been?

Odine. Fuck. Fuck him, fuck Odine, fuck the world. Squall had wanted him to not only look over the information related to, but oversee the first testing of a miniaturized Time Compression bubble device that Odine had been working on with Rinoa's help. Of all the senior level SeeDs or others with training suitable to making sure Odine didn't overstep his bounds, Nida had possessed, supposedly, the proper combination of knowledge, reputation, and the least likelihood of either killing or maiming Odine for harassment or attempts to cut open his skull. So Squall had asked and Nida had obeyed, as he always did.

What he couldn't remember, though, was what happened after the moment Odine had turned the damn thing on. 

“Put me down,” Nida found himself hissing at the blond, his fingers pressed against his temples as a way to try to force away the pain in his head. “I can walk on my own.” Okay, so maybe he was less sure of that than he sounded, but falling was better than this undignified position. Besides, it was better than being in just the right place to have Seifer's over-loud complaints right in his ear.

“Nope,” Seifer insisted, his arms tightening almost painfully around Nida's chest and legs. His voice betrayed his true amusement with the situation. “Ice Princess said I wasn't to let you out of y sight. And even if I were to put you down, by the way lose some weight, I figure this is the best way to look after you.”

“By carrying me around like your bride.”

“Yep,” Seifer replied, his grin both mocking and infuriating. 

Well, at least Seifer was obeying orders, even if it was in his own way. One of Nida's major concerns with putting Seifer in a position of authority was that it could mean he would feel he didn't have to obey Squall's orders. It wasn't strictly true, because before anything else, Seifer was still a SeeD, which meant he ultimately reported to the SeeD High Commander in some cases. Still, the question begged to be asked as to why Seifer had come to Centra to find him—and why he was here himself—when he had responsibilities of his own.

“Since when do you pay such close attention to the word of Squall's orders?”

“Since his fucking flyboy, and in case you don't remember that's you, missing for two whole months finally and suddenly has his Hyne-damned tracker go off and required picking up. And, surprise surprise, it's not in Esthar or on the Space Station, or any of those places you like a lot, or even Winhill. No, he pops up in Centra, just when I'm visiting with Matron. I swear the tight ass worries you're going to disappear again any moment, like you did in Odine's lab. So here I am, following orders to the best of my ability, which means holding on to you, so if you go poof, Squall can't yell at me because I will too.”

How was he supposed to react to that? Two months? How was that even possible?

“Two months? I've been gone two months?” he asked, his voice not concealing his confusion. None of this was making any sense. He'd disappeared from Odine's lab? If his memory—obviously flawed—was anywhere near correct, then he'd been certain that the experiment, the only thing that could cause a problem, was going to be a failure. 

“Why? How long did you think you were gone?”

A year, Nida almost felt like saying, just to be sarcastic. Yet something felt weird about that amount of time. More than that, Seifer looked genuinely concerned with how Nida might answer. That, his years of training told him, suggested that Seifer expected a certain response, and at the same time he was afraid of it. Which left him racking his brain for something that could explain the concern. Or maybe for a memory that would either confirm Seifer's fears or lay them to rest. The problem was that he had nothing to offer. Just a flash of light, then the sensation of floating. 

“A few seconds? Maybe a bit longer?” Nida offered, and Seifer's expression only darkened. “I don't know. One moment I was with Odine and Rinoa, then the machine was flipping out, there was pain... then Darkness and waking up to your ugly face.”

“Seems like that machine fucked you up. Squall wants it destroyed,” Seifer explained, and that didn't concern Nida so much as Seifer's lack of comeback. The blond was very confident, rightly so, with his looks. If it wasn't for Seifer's arrogance he might have even been attractive to Nida. As it was, the blond's lack of snark or knowing smirk said that even he had been concerned about Nida's disappearance. 

“After you disappeared he was the bright one that figured the device had to do with your popping out. As if you could on your own. Figured it really did make a mini-compression, and hoped you'd know how to get back. We quietly started to check the sorts of places you might reappear in. We guessed Esthar, Winhill, Balamb, maybe just somewhere you'd been with logs of wind and birds. But you weren't anywhere. Then, bam, here you are, in the least likely place.”

Was it the least likely place, though? As he looked around, really looked around, he started to notice the signs Seifer must have ignored. Odd patterns on the ground amid the sparse grass. Places where the ground was relatively flat and straight. The charred tree whose main bough twisted in a way that... was terrifyingly familiar. 

“My family lived here.”

The words came without bidding, and he knew the shock on Seifer's face was echoed on his own.

“You okay? You grew up in Winhill...” Seifer started, confidently. After all, he had been in Nida's childhood home once, hadn't he? Plus it was in all their records. Yet the words were right, they rang with certainty in his mind as he turned them over and over, inspecting them from every imaginable angle. At last he came to a conclusion he couldn't argue against, not with all of the details his mind was retrieving. He remembered a wind chime on a porch, the tire swing hung from the old tree, playing in the fields under the watchful eyes of family friends. The smell of fresh bread and the musical laughter of a woman that made his heart skip a beat. 

“No,” he said, slowly prying himself away from the things that could only be memories. “My biological parents. Before the war that orphaned us I lived here. There was a village, in the center of the fields. I lived with my mother and father. Elena and Samuel. Sheya. That was our name. But all I remembered at the orphanage was my first name. I was only five. Then Daphne took me in.”

It was his name that brought Seifer to an abrupt stop not twenty feet from what was clearly his flier. Not that Nida could blame him for freezing. It wasn't often that a SeeD of Nida's level, especially one who worked so closely with Gfs, suddenly started to remember parts of their past, at least not without external stimuli. Most of the orphanage gang had only come to remember their shared past through luck and active prompting by Irvine. He, like Seifer, had abstained from abusing GFs in his training. Nida, though, had openly embraced the power GFs had offered him early on. What remained of his past was only the parts which he could reinforce with pictures, possessions, and friends. Not that words and items alone were enough. A few Zebalgans had claimed that he was the son of one of their n umber, but he hadn't believed it. Yet here he stood—figuratively—looking at proof of his blood, his past, and the life he had lived here. There really had been a small Zebalgan village destroyed by Sorceress Adel. 

No wonder Zebalgans hated sorceresses. There was barely even the least sign that there had once been a village here. 

“I suppose that must have been rattled loose by Odine's fuck up,” was all Nida could offer as explanation. Maybe it was even right, because the memories would not stop coming. One in particular lingered over long, a vivid nightmarish dream of this village in flames. Hadn't Boyce Megill mentioned something about a boy who had foreseen such a fire? The very thought of it made him tremble. 

“Sounds like not only Doc K is going to want time with you when you reach Balamb. Veringas is going to want to come in and hear about this.”

All too true, but if he was lucky, Kadowaki would delay that for a while. For now it was probably better to try to come to terms with the flickers of memory on his own. 

Well, maybe not entirely on his own. As Seifer resumed carrying him to the flier, Nida turned his attention inward towards the gentle and mournful touch of his GF, Siren. 

* * * * * *

People had been worried about him. Seifer had spent a decent portion of their lengthy flight back to Balamb going on, at length, about the attempts the Gardens had made at silently searching for him. No one had been willing to be too open, half concerned that his disappearance was more than what Odine had claimed, half worried about public reaction when a major power went missing. Even after the war had ended Nida and Irvine had been the center of an extreme amount of speculation and attention. One of the few reasons Nida hadn't has to deal with much attention in Esthar was because much of the little time spent outside of his apartment has been behind closed doors in the presidential palace. 

It had taken him a while to convince Seifer that he needed to rest and think before they reached his home Garden, and in that time he'd learned of some of the changes he had missed. For one thing Seifer was over a month in to his new position as the Galbadian Headmaster, not to mention Irvine had been taken on as SeeD Commander under Selphie's role as Headmistress in Trabia. Those had been in the works before Nida's disappearance. That knowledge, though, made the sight through the windows of the flier more shocking. For all that it was well after sundown there was a large group of people standing just beyond the landing pad. Familiarity and common sense allowed him to pick out the full assembly of the Inter-Garden Council. 

“How?” Nida asked, certain Seifer would understand the question when he saw where Nida was focusing. 

“Squall called everyone in when your signal started broadcasting. I drew the short straw because of where I was. Not sure why, but in the end it saves us some time apparently. Come on, let's get you presented.”

Before Nida could protest, Seifer's arms were back under his legs and around his torso, and there was little he could do to save face than just take it. Not that he would save much face. After all, these were the highest ranked Garden officials, his superiors in most senses of the word. Selphie and Irvine of Trabia Garden, Seifer and Fujin for Galbadia, Quistis and Zell as the leaders of Balamb, not to mention Squall. Once again they had all risen beyond his ability to match, not that he wanted their responsibilities. Though, now that he thought about it, he was the senior SeeD the Gardens had to command. The rest were administrators and leaders, he was the only one now with the freedom of deployment they used to enjoy, and would frequently need. When he looked at it like that it was hard to tell who really had it better. More importantly than that, if they had managed to keep his disappearance silent this could quite easily be interpreted by any onlookers as the last senior SeeD of his level left free to operate for the gardens returning from a long, dangerous deployment. But to reinforce that he could hardly allow Seifer to carry himi the rest of the way.

Nor could he just tell Seifer to put him down. The senior Balamb SeeD and—if all went as originally planned before his disappearance—Head Instructor for Balamb Garden could hardly expect a Headmaster of another Garden to obey him. Which meant there was only one way to turn the situation to his advantage. Granted it might result in a few bruises and some disciplinary action, but he was more than willing to risk both. 

“Hey Seifer,” he said, crooking his finger to imply that he wanted to whisper something important. Obligingly Seifer leaned his head closer, giving Nida ample chance to loop his arm around the blond's neck. With that he moved his other hand to rest on the one wrapped around his legs. It took no effort at all to find the right place to thrust his fingers in to attack the nerves. Seifer yelped in pain and when his hand jerked away Nida could feel himself falling. Even expecting this it was hard for him to react fast enough, but Nida found the support he needed in Seifer's neck so that he could swing his body down, letting his feet lightly touch the ground. 

While there was some advantage to having gained his feet, there was now a brand new problem behind him in the form of an enraged Seifer. The Galbadian Headmaster lunged for him, and Nida just smiled as he dodged nimbly out of the way without so much as breaking stride. Not that a dodge was enough to stop Seifer. Far too soon there was a fist flying towards his temple, and Nida had to move even as he slid a foot out to trip the larger man. Not that he stopped there. Instead he kept advancing on the waiting group as if he couldn't notice Seifer falling behind him. It wasn't hard to pick out the smiles Selphie and Zell wore at the display, or Irvine's attempt to hide a chuckle by lowering his head so his hat could obscure his face. The others, though, only took it all in silently. 

Soon, too soon, Nida stood before the trio of the two Headmistresses and the SeeD High Commander. Quickly he came to a stop and snapped off the smartest salute he could manage. 

“Rank A SeeD Nida Nomura reporting in, sir. I ask that you forgive Headmaster Almasy. He mentioned something about being tired on our return trip. He insisted upon assisting me despite his own health.” 

Squall was, as a rule, rather inexpressive. He had long since perfected the outward stoicism he had developed as a teen, resulting in what seemed to be an older, harder man than the one who had saved the world. Yet the years had changed them all, and enabled Nida to come to know how ot read what wasn't being said. For instance the particular way that the skin barely crinkled around Squall's eyes revealed his actual amusement with the little show. The silence, though, carried a reprimand along the lines of 'there is a time and place for everything.' 

“I see. I will have to speak to him later about flying in such a state. For now you are to report to Doctor Kadowaki for your post mission examination. I will see that you are delivered a clean uniform.”

Odd how before that comment Nida hadn't bothered too look himself over. What litlte he could see revealed how pitiful he looked. The dust and dirt made sense since he'd been lying on the ground in Centra for a length of time. It was the smattering of tears that made little to no sense. Together with the first his uniformed looked like it had been through war and back, which made no sense at all. 

“If I might hazard a suggestion, sir.”

Three heartbeats passed in silence before Quistis cleared her throat and responded. She was, after all, technically his boss. “Yes, Nomura?”

“If you will excuse the bluntness, I'm quite tired, and the Doctor tends to be thorough in her examinations. It could be a while before she deems me fit enough to stand the full attention of the assembled Council...”

“Of course,” Squall cut in, obviously reading the intended path of the comment. He was always the sharpest of the group. “The Council has its business to attend to that I would prefer to see to now. We will send someone for you when we are ready. Until then you are to report to Doctor Kadowaki.”

He was torn between being thankful for the dismissal and concerned that their 'business' might be interrogating Seifer on what he had learned. But it was what it was and he intended to take the offered reprieve. 

“Zell, check the records for Nomura's sizes and go to the stores for a spare uniform. Full rank and commendations of course.” Quistis added, quickly stepping up to command the others even as Squall moved to reenter the Garden. “Fujin, would you be so kind as to go to the cafeteria before they shut down and inform them that the Doctor will likely be sending down instructions soon for a patient? Irvine, see Nomura to the infirmary. Inform Kadowaki that he is to report to the conference room when he is able to withstand debriefing. Tonight. Seifer, Selphie, come with me. We've a few matters that need discussed with Squall before require the input of our Commandres.”

Seifer had barely reached Nida's side as Quistis breezed through her commands, and when his eyes met Nida's it was with the most vicious glare those green eyes could muster. It was actually quite impressive. 

Then, like that, everyone was turning their backs on Nida and striding off at a brisk pace he knew his legs couldn't handle. It had taken too much to keep them from shaking these last few moments, and the second he no longer needed the strong facade, it failed hi.

“Irvine,” he gasped as his legs went, but Irvine was already moving. His stronger than remembered arms were around Nida's waist almost immediately, and it no longer mattered that Nida could barely stand on his own. They remained like that for a few moments as Nida caught his breath and tried to force strength back into his legs; where he was going to find the strength to make it to the infirmary?

At the question he felt his skin start to burn as the power of an aura spell worked its way through his skin. The rush, normally meant for battle usage, was more than enough to find him throwing his arm around Irvine's neck and willing his legs into forward motion.

“Thanks,” he whispered, knowing his body was going to punish him for the abuse later.

“No problem. Dreamt you would need it. Anyway, are you okay?”

Nida couldn’t help but laugh. “Isn't that up to Kadowaki to decide?” 

“Maybe it is. Maybe it is.”

* * * * * *

When he awoke Nida found his mind latching on to two odd facts: the room was far darker than he remembered it being when Kadowaki had been looking him over, and he was strongly relieved to find himself waking in a familiar place like the infirmary. The latter thought was strange enough that he took a moment to examine it before discarding the thought altogether. The former observation made him wonder just how long he had been unconscious. 

“Don't worry,” came Kadowaki's familiar, soothing voice from somewhere around his elbow. “You've only been out around seven hours. Not nearly enough, but I can never get you SeeDs to sleep long enough. It has given me time to rule out most major injuries and illnesses that I can test for in that time, and we've put some fluids in you as well. I do want to check your leg and arm later, to be sure that you haven't strained your old injuries, but that can wait.”

As she spoke the Doctor wrote on a clipboard, taking a chance to look over a few monitors that Nida saw he was hooked up to. The pure lack of concern on her face made him sure that he really was fine enough, all things considered. Whether long term observation by her and Veringas would agree with the initial findings was still to be seen, but that was in the future. 

It seems to me that your body is showing the same signs of strain that we saw from those who experienced time Compression. Likely a side effect of that idiot Odine's new toy. You should be fine in a few days. I could tell Squall and Quistis otherwise though, if you would like some time. I expect he is not going to be fun to see tonight.”

“Sadly I don't think they're going to fall for that since we're already meeting at five AM.”

Irvine was staring at the two from the door, an apologetic smile on his face as he approached the bed Nida was laying on. “Sorry. He told me to wake Nomura if he wasn't already awake, and take him to the conference room. Said not much reason to keep us around too long. Funny, right? The sooner we start, the sooner you can pack Nida back into a bed.”

Kadowaki sighed, her expression beyond off put. “I don't think Squall should be telling me when to release my own patients. Let us not forget it is nearing five in the morning, not to mention that the boy has nearly eaten.”

“You know Squall,” Nida said, shifting so he was sitting up in the bed. There was some issue with trailing IVs and monitor cords. “Food will be waiting, and no doctor is going to get between him and what's in my head.”

Irvine nodded in agreement. “Squall had food brought down for everyone, not just Nida. Just give me a list of what he can and can't have and I'll make sure he eats right.”

“I need a uniform,” Nida added as Kadowaki sighed and started to remove an IV from his arm. 

It didn't take too much searching for Irvine to turn up the surprisingly pressed uniform hanging on the back of the door of Kadowaki's office. As he worked the slightly loose pants on Irvine started to update him on the vital gossip of the Gardens over the last several months. There was little surprsie that much of it related to his own lack of presence. Some of the best rumors were the utterly ridiculous, like the one where he'd been eaten by a herd of wild chocobos. Others were almost acceptable if their scale wasn't so idiotic, like taking on a stampede of Ochus alone, then getting lost in the forests after, completely delirious with poison. There were those that involved Seifer killing him for a variety of reasons. Irvine's personal favorite had Nida assigned to infiltrate a terrorist organization that Squall had personally taken out about a week back. That was the one Nida intended to make use of if Squall and Quisits had no other suggestions. 

Neither of them had trouble picking out their least favorite of the vast array of rumors. One had Nida abandoning Garden to join the dead leader of the Zebalgans, Boyce Megill. 

“I've been having nightmares about him,” Irvine admitted in a whisper and the words made Nida shudder. Their dreams were hardly things to be taken lightly. While neither Nida nor Irvine had dreamed of anything major since the war, they still had to be worried about what they saw. Who knew which of the clearer ones, no matter how strange, would be true. 

Nightmares about a dead man might not worry others, but they could spell the worst when they came from Irvine's or Nida's minds.

The very suggestion of Boyce put them both in a poor mood as they made their way to the conference room in the subbasement. In fact, neither of them spoke, caught up in the memories of Boyce's death, and the knowledge that the body had never been found. Seifer had once pointed out the classic movie and book trope that if the heroes didn't see the bad guy's body for themselves, then he was still alive. Not that things like that happened in real life, right?

Their arrival in the conference room was met by the sight of Seifer stealing the last hot dog from a tray, much to Zell's chagrin. Fujin snarled something at her superior, and Quistis rolled her eyes at the whole situation. The conflict had so much attention that it took Selphie's pleased cheer at the sight of Irvine to tear attention from the food. Squall, though, had looked up almost immediately, and said nothing at all. That left it all up to Selphie to announce their presence. 

“Irvy!” she cheered, leaping from her seat and all but throwing herself in Irvine's arms. Almost immediately his hat was on her head and Selphie had turned to give Nida a bone crushing hug. “About time you're back! We were worried sick. Even Seifer was suppose worried, but he won't tell you. He went all over Esthar on his own. Can you believe that?”

No, and yes. He had been adopted into Seifer's posse during the recent war, and with that tie came certain expectations. Ties of allegiance, promises to help each other, and expectations to uphold the posse's reputation. That meant, of course, that Nida wasn't going to taunt Seifer with this tidbit. Not in public at least. 

“NIDA!” Fujin shouted, her own way of greeting and reprimanding him at the same time.

“Selphie is right, so you know,” Quistis added, smiling at him. 

“Mu mphed fu mu,” Zell coughed around the hot dog he'd stolen from Seifer. 

Nida just smiled as Irvine pried Selphie off of him. Once free he made his way for his spot at the table. “Do you guys mind if I grab some food before you put me through the wringer?”

The question settled the others down a bit, and with their attention in getting ready for the meeting, he was free to load his pl ate with scrambled eggs and toast. The Doc apparently didn't want him eating anything more complex for now, which was all the same to him. Once he had a few mouthfuls down and had prepared a cup of coffee he started without prompting into his story. Everyone listened pretty attentively as he traced his memory from waking to Squall's call all the way through his theories on Odine's experiment. Then he covered what little he remembered of the experiment itself, leading up to the point where Seifer had found him and awoken him in Centra. 

“While Seifer was complaining of where I wound up I looked around and realized that I knew the place. That I'd grown up there.”

Everyone grew silent as he spoke, their expressions shocked save for Seifer's. Apparently he hadn't felt like sharing that detail with the others. Who knew what drove that man to act the way he did sometimes. 

“But you're from Winhill, silly,” Selphie assured him like she would a confused child. 

“Let him speak,” Squall cut in, not seeming quite so confused as interested. 

“I was raised until I was five in a village on the Centran continent. Being there, in it's ruins, sparked the memory. No, more memories than that. They're still hard to process, they keep coming. But I know a lot, my last name for one thing.”

“Which is?” Irvine apparently couldn't help but prompt. 

“Sheya. I'm positive of it. Just like I knew so many other things. I remember the stories, the legends, playing with the other kids. Thinking about them, I'm certain my mother knew her bloodline, because she whispered different stories to me than those my father told of Zebalga and Vascaroon. It was a Zebalgan village. It burned down, was destroyed by the Sorceress Adel. I shouldn't remember any of this, but I do, clear as crystal. I don't understand it.”

The table greeted him with silence, until at last Squall spoke, as unexpected as it was.

“It's possible that the memories are a side-effect of the miniature Time Compression you experienced. Odine will want to look you over, but it's best to send you to Veringas instead.”

“Good on being his guinea pig again,” Seifer laughed, earning a glare from Squall. 

“This is serious. Either something went wrong or right,” Quistis added.

“Not one I suggest going through. There is the pain, the disorientation, the disappearance, the lost time...”

“The nightmares,” Irvine added, and Nida couldn't help but stare at him in confusion. 

“Nightmares?”

The silence was of a kind that was impressive for so many people to hold. Sadly it lacked the specific kinds of meaning that Squall's had, leaving him only with the impression of nervousness. The worst part was that everyone was in on what made them nervous except for him. Yet as he tired to meet anyone's eyes to plead for an answer, they looked away. Except for Squall, whose eyes were steal, and Irvine, who looked annoyed. 

“Are we seriously not going to tell him?”

“Tell me what?”

“We had Ellone search for you after you went missing,” Squall said at length, his voice utterly flat, even for him.

“She reached you in a nightmare,” Irvine continued when Squall would not. “A dream of Garden in utter ruin. You were on a bench in the entrance hall. You went on about how it was your fault for being gone so long. She asked how long. You said months. You were certain of it, that you had disappeared for real. That you were gone. Worse what what she saw in the ruins. The words 'Boyce,' 'Zebalga,' and 'Traitors' grafittied over all of the walls. She was there more than once too, though you ignored her after the first time, accusing her of being just a part of the dream herself.”

All Nida could do was frown down at his food, trying to process it all. 

“I... don't remember any of that. Sorry. I can't explain it, or say anything other than it makes my head spin.”

Squall nodded in acknowledgment, “Understood. You're dismissed. Get some rest. We'll summon you later if we need anything else. For now we need to think about what we've learned here. Sleep well.”

All he could do was shovel the rest of his food into his mouth, accept a slip of paper with his room assignment and access code from Quistis, and shuffle out of the room. There was so much to process. Especially the bit about the dream. It made no sense, not that anything today had. Yet somehow, in the pit of his stomach, it felt like something was starting.


	3. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, things are kind of chaotic with my life lately. But hopefully they will start to look up soon. Anyway, sorry for the delay.

Ten minutes. That was all it had taken. Ten minutes in his newly assigned rooms laying on his newly assigned bed, staring up at his ceiling and pointedly not looking at the sparsely furnished place before it all brought back too many bad memories. Memories of being holed up in an equally empty room with nothing to do but think about what he had learned when waking into a strange situation. Or there were other memories of a room like this one in its emptiness, but different in that it had been cut out of red stone. They were memories of worse times, of pain and annoyance and loss. So, faced with a room and situation far too familiar for his liking Nida had lasted all of ten minutes. After that, regardless of the implied orders to sit tight and wait Nida found himself fleeing the silent accusations of the room. And, given the fact that he lacked any classes to teach or friends to meet with, there was only one place for him to truly escape the silence. 

There were few times in a day that any Garden's cafeteria was empty; rare moments where there were enough classes in session to distract students and cadets alike. While plenty of students preferred the quad for socializing and relaxing, there was something about the environment of the cafeteria that drew students in. It made for a busy atmosphere and a buzz of noise that soothed his soul. At the same time it made finding an empty table and some feigned sense of privacy nearly impossible. Maybe he felt it more strongly now that there was no one left to have a spot at a table for him, but the hustle was almost unnerving. 

With a sigh Nida ran his fingers through his hair—an old nervous tick of his once again coming to the forefront—and made his way to the counter. Getting a cup of coffee was his biggest concern at the moment, but even that was turned into a big affair when the cafeteria ladies recognized him and all but dragged him over the counter to find out just which of the rumors about his disappearance were true. Five minutes he was the captive to their audience, smiling mysteriously as they argued over different possibilities. At last it was his emptied coffee mug and the line forming behind him that prised him from the overeager attentions of the cafeteria workers. 

It was with a full mug of the low quality Garden coffee—one had their taste spoiled for it when they had spent a good time drinking quality Galbadian brews—and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich that he was freed to search the cafeteria for a seat. Not that it took long, of course, to figure out there really was none to be had. Wonderful. 

“Over here, sir! There's a seat open here!” 

A quick glance around the room was more than enough for Nida to pick up two vital facts: one, the cheerful looking young SeeD was standing by a table with two open spots, waving his arms vigorously; and two there was no one else present save himself that could be counted as a 'sir' to the young SeeD. Neither of these facts, though, helped him figure out just why a young man clearly newly come to his rank would want his attention. But seats were seats, and he'd managed to cultivate an icy stare Squall would be proud of, earning him peace and silence if the young man and the two others at his table decided to inflict another round of 'guess the rumor' with him. 

“Good morning, SeeD...” Nida prompted as he strode up to the young SeeD's table. 

“SeeD Harrison, sir. Issac Harrison, but I go by Zac,” the SeeD gushed as he all but pulled a seat out for Nida. “These are Jacob Comb, he goes by Jay, and Olivia Morris, called Livi.” 

As he sat Nida sipped at his coffee to buy time to get a closer look at the trio. Jay and Livi both wore cadet uniforms and in them they looked similar enough with their short cut black hair and wide brown eyes to be related. It helped that the way they sat there, their shoulders sagging, even matched. Zac, on the other hand, had the kind of puffed out chest and thrown back shoulders one expected of new SeeDs. The joy, the confidence it gave him had Zac beaming widely, a smile made all the more attractive by how often his sandy brown hair slid down into his sky blue eyes. Yes, Nida was relatively certain that whoever else this Zac was, he was newly come to his SeeD position, and his two friends had failed to pass the exam. 

The question remained, though, as to just who the trio was and why they wanted his company. 

“Good morning to you all. I presume congratulations are in order, Harrison.” 

“They are, sir?” 

“Oh your attainment of SeeD rank,” Nida responded, putting his food down. “I am correct that you are new to the ranks, am I not?” 

“Y... Yes sir!” Zac announced, eyes wide in shock and pride. “Forgive me for asking, sir, but how could you tell?”

“You've been practically dancing around for a while,” the girl, Livi, mumbled under her breath. Not that Nida didn't catch it. While Siren enhanced his senses when she was with him, that didn't mean he couldn't hear without her. After all, his hearing had always been relatively sharp on its own.

“There is a way that the uniform looks on someone who is new to it. There's also a look that an experienced SeeD gets after their first few missions. I can't describe it, but when you see enough new SeeDs you learn to pick them out. I'd peg you at... maybe a week?”

“Week and two days, sir,” Zac agreed, still sounding quite pleased with himself.

“He won't stop bragging,” Jay added, shaking his head. “Rubbing our faces in it almost.”

“I'm not...”

Nida merely raised a hand and the pending argument stopped itself before it got started. “”If I may? There were only four graduates in my SeeD class, and one of them was a Trabian student. Becoming a SeeD is no small task, nor is the position for everyone. It takes a degree of hard work, spirit, and unwavering will that is hard to come by.”

Livi scoffed and shook her head at that. “If we didn't have the commitment, we wouldn't be here. We knew what we were getting into when we sighed up.”

Nida froze with his mug halfway to his mouth. That was definitely an odd choice of words. Most Garden students mentioned when they had arrived, or had been given to Garden, or when they had joined. Signing up wasn't a concept most people had when it came from Garden. At least, the students didn't tend to use such a term. The only times Nida heard 'sign up' related to Garden was with outside instructors and...

“So you're Squall's batch,” he decided at last, the whole situation suddenly making more sense. It failed, though, to explain just what it was about him that drew Zebalgans. Maybe, in light of what he had learned about himself, he could chalk it up as blood calling to blood, but that made no sense either. No, it likely had to do more with the role that the people once thought he held.

“I guess you could put it that way,” Jay agreed. “How did you...”

“Technically I think we're SeeD Commander Dincht's,” Livi corrected, frowning. “Truth is we've heard some things from the others at Galbadia and Trabia, and apparently Galbadia is by far the most comfortable place to be a Zebalgan cadet.”

“Hardly surprising,” Zac agreed, leaning back in his chair. “I mean, sure, High Commander Leonhart steps up for us when it's needed, but Commander Dincht isn't as intimidating.”

“He apparently once punched a train car's floor so hard it made the whole train shake!” Livi chided Zac, her eyes filled with awe.

“So? It's not like he's threatened to have a SeeD demoted like Commander Kinneas, and it isn't like he has a reason to be fond of us at all,” Jay countered, smiling.

“Sorry, but I'm gonna suggest Commander Venti is what makes Galbadia work so well. Everyone is afraid of her, even the Headmaster. And let's not forget what Headmaster Almasy has done in these few months either. I mean, he's actually expelled a cadet for their treatment of Zebalgan students. Him! The former Sorceress Knight having to expel someone really pounds the point home, doesn't it?” Zac asked.

“Really?” Nida found himself saying, as amused by the conversation as what he was learning from it. Things really had been changing since his departure from Galbadia. And it sounded like it was for the better.

“Totally!” Zac insisted, his grin wide. “I mean, none of it compares to what you did to that armsmaster. That was just amazing!”

It was hard not to grimace at the memory of the incident the young SeeD was referring to. Until that point Nida had all but ignored his duty as mentor and guardian for the new Zebalgan students at Galbadia Garden. It had been a cadet named Kiera coming to him about abuses of her roommate that had changed things. If it had only been a student doing the harm Nida may have reacted differently. As it was, he had called for Seifer and together they had faced the most influential non-SeeD or Garden trained member of the staff: the armsmaster. In the end he had illustrated his point with violence in front of students, beating the armsmaster down and giving him a simple choice: leave or suffer more for what he had done. It had been a turning point in his time as the Galbadia Garden Commander, though that was behind him now. These days he was just another SeeD. The senior most of the SeeDs not running the three Gardens, but a SeeD nonetheless.

“I assure you that it was nothing,” Nida said into his mug.

“But Kiera said...”

“Whatever she said wasn't hers to say.”

The words came out a bit harder than he'd intended, but the truth was that he couldn't quite help himself. There were things in his life that he deeply regretted. Failing students put into his charge for so long, being forced to deal with the armsmaster the way he had, it was almost disgraceful. Squall had given him the mother of all dressing downs, one only made worse by Seifer's insistence on standing up for him.

“Uh...”

“Excuse me,” Nida said as he pushed back from the table. “There are things I must be doing.”

“Of course,” Jay agreed, looking just as flustered as his friends.

“I'm sure we'll run into each other again,” Nida said with a forced smile as he stood. “After all, there is a chance we'll be working together in the future.”

“Yes sir!” Zac almost shouted as he agreed. It was all Nida could do to just keep the smile up and turn away from the table. Maybe he really just should hide out in his room until Squall called for him, overwhelming silence or not.

 

* * * * * *

 

“Wow, this place is barren.”

Nida didn't even bother to open his eyes when Seifer's words cut into his attempted nap. Doing so would only encourage the asshole to keep bothering him. Of course ignoring Seifer was hardly an effective approach either, because he could hear the Galbadian Garden Headmaster stride further into the room before flopping down in an armchair beside the couch Nida was busy ignoring him from. Sadly Seifer didn't stop there, not from the loud clunks that always came with Seifer using the nearest possible object as a footrest. There was an almost hard to resist urge to lunge across the arm of the couch and go for Seifer's throat for already scuffing the table. Experience told him, though, that it wouldn't work. He'd tried it more times than he could remember, only to end up with Seifer serving him his own ass in one way or another.

“I mean seriously barren,” Seifer continued. Your office in Galbadia had more character to it even when it wasn't buried in mounds of paperwork.

“There would have been fewer mounds if you'd ever helped,” Nida mumbled, still not opening his eyes.

“Paper work isn't my thing.”

“Which makes your position both hilarious and frightening.”

“Nida, you seem pretty attentive to my position. Should I be worried? I mean I'm flattered and all, and it makes sense that you would...”

It had taken Nida months of training to learn that his boots should always be at hand for an emergency. A week living in Galbadia with Seifer as his primary company had taught him a second reason to keep his boots around: handy projectiles. It was one blind hurl that had stopped Seifer in his tracks.

“If I've said it once, Almasy, I've said it a hundred times. You may be physically attractive, but your personality leaves something to be desired.”

“The ladies never complain.”

“The ladies don't have to deal with you for more than the three minutes it takes you to...”

“Now that was uncalled for!” Seifer half snarled, but mostly laughed.

“Oh no. It was called for. It was even long distance.”

“Prick.”

“Ass.”

“Lazy fuck.”

“Arrogant twit.”

“Conceited prophet.”

“Overconfident hack.”

As it often did their insults faded off into a companionable silence. Fujin had once sat in on their little trade of abuse, only to compare them to an old couple. Seifer had laughed at her but called Nida 'honey' for the whole next day. Nida had opted to order Seifer out of his presence whenever they met. There was, had been, a lot of satisfaction in knowing he _could_ order Seifer around; whether he bothered to listen or not was an entirely different matter. Now, though, their situations had more than just reversed. No longer was Seifer his direct subordinate, in fact Seifer held several levels of power over him. That being said, it wasn't like Seifer had much power over him seeing as he led Galbadia Garden, not Balamb. Then again, it wasn't like life was going to be much better reporting to Zell.

At last Nida took a deep breath and sat up, frowning as he turned in place to look at Seifer. The blond looked positively worn around the edges in a way Nida wasn't used to seeing. Of everyone Nida knew, Seifer was the most talented at finding time to be well rested even at the busiest of times. In fact, he was almost better than most pilots Nida knew. Yet the way Seifer looked now... It was clear that Squall had kept the Inter-Garden Council busy far longer than he would have expected. Which, of course, raised the question of what Seifer was going here when he could do clearly use a rest.

“You look like shit.”

“Weren't you just pointing out that I was attractive?”

Nida shook his head and sighed. “You should get some rest. If you need a bed, mine's open.”

“Wouldn't want to keep you from your pleasure in your new bed.”

“Frankly I'm tired of beds in empty rooms,” he admitted.

“Well then, furnish it. This is going to be your home for a while.”

Another person might have only heard it as taunting or advice from a friend, but Nida knew Seifer better. There was something else, more like concern, in his voice. Or maybe disappointment.

“I intended to have the better part of my Esthar apartment moved here when I returned,” he added. “Didn't find time when I was missing.”

“Yeah, about that...”

“Please don't ask. The simple truth is that I can only remember what I've already said. If Squall wants more...”

“Who said anything about Squall? The great part about my position is that I don't report to him now, except when the Council decides one of us needs sent out. So no, I'm not the hound for the Lion today. As if I'd do it anyway. Still, I'm going to admit that I'm about as curious as everyone else about this. But we won't get much more from you. Maybe Veringas will find something to explain it all but...”

“But what?”

“The truth is I doubt that finding out would tell us much. Call it a gut feeling.”

“And you trust those?” Nida laughed.

“If I didn't then Irvine would be here right now instead of me.”

All Nida could do was stare in confusion, which of course set Seifer to chuckling. That was just like him, to make a mysterious statement and force Nida to fish after just what it meant. Sometimes it worked out that he figured it out, and sometimes he was left standing there as Seifer walked away laughing.

 

* * * * * *

 

_It starts the way it always does, in smoke and fog. Over the years he's gotten used to it, knowing on a level beyond consciousness just what it all meant. A future, but one that wasn't set in stone. Yet this was the same one that had plagued him for years, one that told him nothing at all, even as the shadowy figure with the familiar crimson tinted blade that was Rupio stepped from the greater fog. As always the figure slipped into an all too familiar stance._

_Elijah. The word, the sentiment behind it rolls forward into the fog, even though it is never said aloud. At the same time he feels his hand tighten around a weapon he hadn't even noticed. The grip calms his otherwise shaking hand. It's hard, far too hard, to keep calm as he watches the shadow beckon him forth. This wasn't a fight he'd ever wanted. And one he had to face._

_It was an all too familiar situation, he realized as he shifted into a defensive stance. Someone he never wanted to hurt pushed to the fight by a threat that could barely be quantified. But that man's power over them wasn't the worst part of this situation. No, it was the way he too stepped from the fog, his outrageously large battleaxe rested on his shoulder. Here, this was the true terror of the situation, and unlike the swordsman, this one was crystal clear. Boyce Megill, a vicious smile on his face._

He was off the couch he'd fallen asleep on almost before he even realized he was awake. How could he not? How long had it been since he'd watched Boyce go over the edge? Not once in that time had the dream changed. Every night a dream of facing Elijah and his crimson blade. It had never made sense, to see that scene time and time again wrapped in the the frame of a future dream. Now it made less sense, but for once he couldn't just brush it all off.

Feet go in to boots as he tries to shake the sleep out of his eyes. From the other room he can hear the sound of Seifer snoring from the bedroom. In the end he'd managed to convince Seifer to lay down and get some sleep, and had followed him shortly after on the couch. Well, he was going to hope not to wake him on his way out. This wasn't something he was really ready to discuss with anyone else just yet. Not anyone but...

A knock at the door, and Nida pulled himself to his feet. Given three guesses as to who it was he was pretty certain he wouldn't even need one. Sure enough once he ordered the door to slide open he met the all too familiar face of Irvine Kinneas. When he looked closely he could see the similarities in them. In their noses, in the shape of their lips, in the angle of their jaws. But, after all, they were supposed to be cousins. The sons of twin daughters of a fated bloodline. Yet the similarities were small in the grand scheme of things. In this moment the thing they truly shared that anyone would notice was the disbelief in their eyes.

“You saw it too.” No question, just a statement from Irvine that carried a weight he didn't know how to handle.

“Does this mean...?” Nida asked, leaning against the door frame and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Even if it's in smoke, it's still a future,” Irvine sighed, shaking his head. “We've got to go talk to Squall.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”


	4. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something goes here. I'm sure of it.

“We got any coffee in this place?” 

“We?” Nida asked, unable to keep the snark out of his voice, unmoving from his place half-sitting, half-leaning against an arm of the couch he had been sleeping on so recently. “First, this is my place, so we doesn't much apply. Second, I haven't exactly had time to settle in, so forgive me for not having a stock of Galbadian prime roast laid in already.”

“Fujin and Zell are scavenging food and drink from the cafeteria,” Quistis yawned as she readjusted how her robe covered her legs for the fifth time since she had sat down in the empty armchair. It was almost frustrating to watch, not that he was paying too much attention. It was just that everyone in the room, despite their various states of fatigue, were all still highly trained mercenaries. Even as their heads nodded while they tried to fight sleep, their eyes were drawn to small motions. Every time Quistis assured herself of her decency, every pair of eyes in the room flashed over to her. 

“Oooh, maybe they'll bring hot chocolate instead of coffee,” Selphie cheered, a sound that almost made Nida wince. Too much too soon, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Wouldn't be...” Nida started, more grumbling than anything else.

“...the same,” Seifer finished for him, laughter in his voice. It just wasn't right how energetic the blond asshole was on what had to be, at best, four hours of sleep. “And it isn't. The stuff you serve here...”

“Is what all the Gardens serve,” Squall added, his voice quiet and sharp and managing to drop the temperature of the room by a few degrees.

“Maybe, but sometimes you've got to splurge with your personal funds and take a step up in the world,” Seifer countered easily, still smiling. 

The look on Squall's face was one that didn't take an expert to read. His slightly tightened brow said that he doubted how much of those funds really came from Seifer's pockets. The micro-narrowing of his eyes said that he was more than willing to spend an evening evaluating the finances of Galbadia Garden to check for misappropriation of funds. The upturn of the corner of his lips promised that he'd make Seifer pay for any misbehavior with blood. 

“Do you two have to do that at this hour?” Irvine groaned. “Some of us didn't sleep well.”

“I'm with Irvine,” Nida agreed, punctuating his words with a wide yawn. 

“Silence would just send us all back to sleep,” Quistis pointed out. 

“Not me,” Selphie happily announced.

“Us either,” Irvine offered, and no one had to ask just who he was including. After all, they had all been brought here by one name: Boyce Megill. That alone would have been enough to wake any of them. The fact that the name had been paired with 'dream' and Irvine and Nida's names, well, that had warranted the impromptu little gathering at two in the morning in the almost bare front room of Nida's suite. 

“Regardless,” Squall spoke up at last, his eyes scanning the others in the room, “we wait until Zell and Fujin return.”

This wasn't the kind of thing you discussed without your full strength, and so they waited for the last two members who had been there for the war, who had stood with them on the front lines of the worst conflicts of their generation. All they could do was hope that whatever came after this wasn't going to rate up there on the scale of historic conflicts. Nida was tired of being involved in global conflicts, in having his name known and used, of watching people younger than himself throw their lives away in wars that—in a way—he was responsible for.

Silence ultimately won out, dominating all the gathered individuals—save Selphie and Seifer who were apparently having a staring contest on the couch and giggling insanely—beyond even the point when Fujin and Zell returned with trays of food and drink. Squall did lift a particularly expressive eyebrow when he sampled the coffee, which was a good deal better than normal Garden fair. In fact, if Nida was any judge of the brew, it was quite likely that the stuff had come from Squall's personal stash, a point further supported by the smirk Fujin was wearing, and the nervous way Zell moved as he poured cups. It wasn't until most of them were halfway through their drinks—mostly coffee, but Selphie had clearly opted for hot chocolate—that Squall pushed himself away from the wall he'd been leaning against and took the last remaining chair, the one all the other seats in the room had been shifted to face. 

Funny how they couldn't even get together at ungodly hours in the morning to talk these days without having everyone almost unconsciously turn to Squall to lead them. It was both comforting and unnerving to see them do it, and to not see any of them bothered by the knowledge they all clearly shared. Squall was their leader, he had the tactical mind that all of them were trained for to some degree, but one that came with a clarity and brilliance that couldn't be matched by simple training. To be fully honest Quistis had that too, but it was book trained, it lacked creativity and she had problems with making necessary sacrifices. Seifer was the closest they had to someone on Squall's level, hell, he probably was on Squall's level. The problem there was that, even after years of training and experience, Seifer was insanely creative, but a lot worse at handling the raw calculations of how many deaths were an acceptable loss, and even worse at keeping out of the fight himself. It was always nice to know that you had people like that to lead you, to guide your footsteps in hard times. 

The downside, the reason it made him almost queasy in a way he had never realized before this, was that if Squall was ever taken out... Well, where would they be?

“So...” Zell said at last from his spot on the floor, “Someone going to tell us just what's going on?”

As ever there was no response from Squall, and Nida was left to meet Irvine's eyes. For all that everyone was oriented on Squall, this was really their meeting. Fitting that it was about as orthodox as they had turned out to be. Still, the question was who was going to take charge, and with the slightest tilt of his head Nida offered the choice to Irvine. Surprisingly enough, the gunner even took it. 

“More likely than not, Boyce Megill is still alive.”

One, two, three. Nida found himself counting the breaths before the room exploded into noise. Four, five... And here it went. Zell, Quistis and Selphie's voices raised quite a racket and there was a small part of Nida, one that still saw thought of himself as a teenager that was unappreciated and eager to prove himself, wanted to straighten up and demand silence. The rest of him, the part that was a war veteran twice over, that had more blood on his hands that he cared to admit, that had seen some of the terrors he had, just wanted to shy away from the noise and deny what Irvine had said. Instead he looked on, waiting just as Irvine was for the noise to die down. 

“Both of you?” Squall asked, his voice cutting easily through the noise and leaving silence and his question in the wake. 

No more response than a nod was needed, so Nida offered it as he reached across Seifer to snatch a bagel from one of the table trays. While he stretched Seifer grabbed the carafe of passable coffee from the other and barely even looked as Nida twisted his mug into position for a refill. Without even thinking about it the two slipped back into their original positions and Nida bit into the stale bagel that was as cold as the coffee was hot. 

“Well ain't you two cute,” Zell snickered from his place on the floor. 

Nida tore a bit off of his bagel and bounced it off of the side of Zell's face. Had any of them been more awake it would have been more impressive. As it was even the perpetual battery of Zell seemed too tired to care about the action, and hadn't even bothered to dodge. Instead he just smirked. 

“He's got a point,” Quistis chuckled over her own mug of coffee. “You two are... natural together.”

“Work together for as long as we have and you learn to react without thinking,” Nida explained, not even bothering to look at Seifer. The truth of it was that he wasn't entirely certain what he'd find if he looked at the blond in question. It could range from amusement over the comment, to self-satisfaction, to annoyance. Years working together, and Seifer still wasn't the easiest to predict. One would think that throwing razor sharp letter openers at Seifer for a few months would give him an edge in reading Seifer, but he was far more complex than first impressions might suggest. Of course, there were likely people out there who would think that throwing razor sharp letter openers at people was a horrible way to get to know them better. Those people lived lives he couldn't even begin to understand.

“Back on topic, what exactly did you see?” Squall asked, and everyone went quiet once more. 

“It's not exactly 'seeing,'” Irvine started, and Nida found himself cutting in without really thinking about it. 

“It was a smoke dream,” he said, staring down at his boots and remembering what it had been like to wake from the dream. No, nightmare. “Smoke dreams are... harder to read. Harder to decode if you will. It's like being given a role of blurry movie film and being asked to develop a clear plot for the movie from a single frame. I know Irvine and I have tried to explain this a number of times but it's pretty clear that you guys don't quite understand. A few years ago I wouldn't have either. But it remains like that. We get emotions, we get impressions, we get the briefest glimpses as we feel like we're going through the motions of whatever we're being shown. It's... disorienting and emotionally charged. But it's a future.

“When I slept I woke into one of those dreams. There is a... limited sort of out of body awareness of them, most of the mind is caught up in the moment of the future. But it's a smoke dream, and they aren't set in stone. The moment can be changed if you recognize it and actively try to alter it. But the grains of them are always caught up with the present, right?”

“Yeah, that's about the gist of it,” Irvine agreed, his voice dark like Nida had never heard it before. “Smoke dreams can be changed, but they seem to be things that are caught up definite events of the present. If we saw Boyce in a dream, he's alive.”

“But you killed him!” Selphie protested, and Nida found himself flinching at the words. 

That wasn't, exactly, the truth. Neither Irvine nor himself had killed Boyce. At least neither of them were responsible through their direct actions. No, it had been a chain of events that were meant to end in Boyce's capture. Instead they had nearly lost, had been forced to hurt him, and had to drag Boyce's unconscious form out of what amounted to a personal little hell, fighting the whole way. In the end Megill had managed to get free, to throw himself over the edge of Battleship Island, and disappeared into the churning waves below. There had been no reason to believe that Boyce had survived, and there had been plenty of searching. After that day there had been no dreams, no hints, no references to Boyce. Everyone had thought him dead. 

Nida, while he had refused to admit it, had been relieved. Soon after the end of Boyce had come the end of the war. Not quite the head of the serpent, but definitely its heart. 

“No,” Irvine countered for him. “We didn't kill him. I was certain he was dead, though. This dream...”

“Changes everything,” Nida finished when Irvine trailed off. 

This time the silence was almost disarming. Nida was certain he could hear his own heart beat because no one was talking, no one was eating, no one was breathing. When at last the silence was broken, when at last the question that he knew had to come finally did, it came from the least likely source.

“What now?” Seifer asked of the room.

“If he is alive, and doesn't want to be found, I don't think we could find him,” Quistis sighed, finishing her drink and moving for a refill. 

“We could always put the word out that we're looking for him,” Zell suggested, only to earn himself glares from around the room. 

“Yeah, because that's the best idea. Let's tell everyone in the world that the leader of an enemy force in the most recent war isn't dead like we said they were, and we're looking for him because we can't find him alone. Oh, and the only reason that we know he's alive is because two people dreamed of him. Let's try that, Chicken. See how far it gets us,” Seifer snapped. 

“Hey!” Zell shouted, springing to his feet. 

“No, Seifer's got a point,” Selphie added, frowning pretty severely. “It's not like the public opinion has been on our side since the war. I mean, yeah, people prefer not to be ruled and dominated by religious zealots, but the whole belief in why the Zebalgans were doing what they were kind of died off quickly. Nida and my Irvy may be recognizable by the public these days, but that doesn't mean a lot of people believe they're clairvoyant.”

“And let's not even get into how damaging it might be if we let those individuals among the Zebalgans who didn't take kindly to peace know that Boyce is still alive,” Irvine sighed. “I think we can all agree that is one can of worms we don't want to open.”

“We might not have a choice if Boyce returns and uses those powers of his to exert control over the Zebalgans,” Quistis added, delivering her SeeD Commander a reprimanding glare. “Which would be more dangerous than any disbelief that would result from finding out that we lied about his death.”

“We didn't lie,” Nida growled. “We were just...”

“Doesn't matter,” Squall cut in, and as he stood from his chair all eyes were on him. Leave it to Squall to make a scene without even meaning to. “It will be seen as that. It will be seen as a cover-up. As a failing of the Gardens that we hid. Worst will be that we won't be able to find him. Finding one man who wants to hide and has allies who are willing to help them do just that will be nearly impossible.”

The way that Squall's eyes moved to Seifer, lingering there, said more than enough. They'd learned that during the Sorceress War, with Seifer in particular. He had all but disappeared after his supposed execution, and the only ones who had been able to find him when he hadn't wanted to be found were the two who knew him best. The chances of them finding Boyce in a situation like this was next to null, even if they hung Irvine out as bait and pretended not to be looking at him. 

“Then how do we deal with this?” Nida asked. 

“We know what he's after. We get there first.”

* * * * * *

“I've never heard a worse idea in my life,” Nida groaned as he paced back and forth across the room. “The one thing, the one thing we have insisted on throughout the whole of this thing is that no matter how far this goes, no matter what the pressure is, we never let this supposed mythical power of a fucking GOD fall into the wrong hands. And, to be honest, I've got to think that any hands are the wrong hands.”

“You're being a drama queen,” Seifer sighed from his position stretched out on Nida's couch. “It's not really all that...”

“It is that bad,” Irvine countered, “In fact, Nida is understating the situation in my opinion. We're talking about, if the legends are true, is a magical power that dwarfs anything that any Sorceress has ever possessed. This is the power that created this world, that led to the existence of humanity. A portion of that power spread into the world has created the monsters we frequently face, their raw power, not to mention the Sorceresses. We're talking about something greater than all of that. And Squall wants us to actually go after it?”

“No,” Seifer groaned as he sat up, his voice taking the kind of tone of a teacher speaking down to a foolish student. It was almost ironic to hear it from him, as Nida was pretty sure that Quistis had used that tone on him more than once, not to mention a good deal of the other Garden Instructors. “Weren't you paying attention? We're not going after it. First of all, it's mostly you two. You're supposed to be the ones who supposedly know how to get there and unlock the power. No, what we're doing is using the knowledge that Megill will be after that power to predict his movements and catch him.”

“Which helps us only if he's not looking for a needle in a haystack,” Nida pointed out before collapsing into the chair Quistis had been in until half an hour before. His room had emptied out quite a bit since Squall's stunning declaration and his post-uproar suggestion that they would be better off discussing things after everyone had more sleep under their belts. Not that Nida thought any was going to be coming to him tonight, not considering the implications of just what Squall wanted of them. Seifer had, of course, stuck around claiming that was too tired to hoof it back to his temporary room, and Irvine... Well, there was no question that he intended to stay behind with Nida and discuss just how bad of an idea Squall had suggested. “We don't even know where to start, so how are we supposed to guess where he's going to go? We know less about this legend than the Zebalgans do, and forgive me if I don't exactly want to go asking them about it.”

“Then we operate on what we do know,” Seifer insisted, pushing himself to his feet and almost immediately taking over Nida's pacing. “For instance, the Zebalgans originate from Centra, and that historian you guys met in the last war suggested that the former empires of Dollet and Esthar were created by Zebalgans. Considering that we can probably assume that those areas, at least closest to known settlements, probably aren't hiding this power. We can't be sure, but given how long they lived in those areas, we can assume they searched those lands well.”

“Searching alone would get them nowhere,” Irvine responded almost immediately, and in that off-hand, flippant kind of way that came from someone who knew more than they were saying but hadn't taken the time to tell anyone else about it yet. 

“Why not?” Seifer cautiously asked, clearly picking up the same note in Irvine's voice that Nida had. 

“Because the path into the sanctum where the power rests lies beyond a door sealed until the lifetime of the Heir.”

For a brief moment Nida's eyes met Seifer's, and then the two of them were staring down Irvine, with the gunner unaware. No, Irvine's eyes were glued to his interwoven fingers, staring ahead and clearly not seeing much. It was an unfocused kind of look, one that could mean so many things, but probably marked Irvine as lost in his thoughts. 

“Irvine,” Nida said at last, taking the initiative when Seifer hesitated too long, “What are you talking about?”

At last Irvine looked up as he leaned back in his chair. His eyes met Nida's levelly, and for a moment it was almost like they were the only ones there, connecting across a great distance. 

“There's a lot you don't know about our bloodline, Nida. I guess this is as good a time as any to enlighten you.”

The words felt like a solid weight settling on his shoulders, holding him in place and refusing to let him go. 

“Irvine,” he responded after a minute, “What are you talking about?”

“There's a lot more to being a part of the line of Vascaroon than our dreams. Well, maybe not for us, but the history of the line is a bit more complicated I guess. I learned a bit of it from my mother before... Well, before. She was starting to teach me everything she was taught as a girl, but... Well, clearly she never managed it. There is as much tradition in being of Vascaroon as there is in being Zebalgan. The major difference, I guess, is in the fact that there are a lot less of us than of them.”

“Irvine?” Nida repeated, this time forcing the name into a question.

“Okay, so here goes. Just because we're the sons of Vascaroon doesn't mean we're the only ones who have seen the future. The women of our bloodline have always been, to a lesser degree, seers in their own right.”

“You got any booze in here?” Seifer asked with a sigh.

“I wish,” Nida moaned as he leaned back into the chair and turned his eyes up to the ceiling. “But like I said, I never quite got a chance to move in properly. What little I acquired since my birthday is still in Esthar. You?”

“Not a damn drop. I kind of rushed out of the Garden to pick you up before coming here for the meeting. I have a change of clothes. I have Hyperion. I also have enough time to get the toiletries together. But nothing on the drinking side. Unless you intend to try your luck with the minor ethanol base of potions, I can't help you. Irvine?”

“Neither of your has had more than a handful of hours of sleep, with no prospect of more before we're dragged before Squall to talk more about his crazy plan, and you want to throw alcohol on top of that fire?” Irvine asked incredulously. “You're fucking kidding, right?”

“Well, what do you expect?” Nida demanded, lowering his eyes back to the sniper. 

It was strange to see Irvine like this, clad in little more than boxers and his long coat, not even a pair of shoes to his name. Not that Nida was much better. There was little in the way of personal garments here, and with Seifer taking up his bed he'd pretty much collapsed on his couch without doing more than removing his uniform coat and boots. The boots had gone back on when he'd woke up, only to find themselves shed while he called the others to summon to his room. Seifer was the most dressed in the room. He'd managed in the time it took everyone else to show up to the room to fully dress and look ready for a day of work, right down to his excessively long uniform coat and polished boots. Next to him Nida and Irvine looked like they'd just been shaken out of the sleep.

“Let me put this into context, okay? A while ago I woke up after some pretty serious trauma, and you tried to explain to me just what all of this meant. About everything that you hadn't been telling any of us. And in the process you all but swore that you were telling me everything, Irvine. And where do we find ourselves now? With you sitting there revealing that there was far more you hadn't mentioned. How do you expect me to react?” 

“Clearly with bells and whistles,” Seifer added, rolling his eyes. “Nomura, as much as I'm in your corner here, the longer you beat this Mesmerize to death the longer it's going to be before we get some answers here.”

Nida sighed, shook his head, and pushed himself back to his feet. “Maybe the Mesmerize needs beaten. Maybe for once I would just like to know exactly what is going on without having to fight for every little detail. Maybe I'd like it to be easy for once!”

“Life's not easy,” Irvine observed, his voice pained and tired. “Life is fucking hard, has always been hard for us, and it isn't about to get better. Forgive me for saying it, but it's easier for you Nida, or at least it has been. I grew up knowing more about this because I had a a family that I remember. Less about my father to be fair, but my mother, I know a lot about her. I remember the last time I saw her. She put me into the arms of a personal friend and made her promise to see me to safety. So yeah, maybe I kept some things to myself, because they were all I had left.”

Well how did someone respond to that? As much as he hated it, he had to concede the point to Irvine here. Even now, even with the memories bubbling back because of whatever shock had been dealt him by Odine's machine, well, it didn't quite match what Irvine was saying. Now, that wasn't to say that he didn't know pain. He'd loved Daphne as his true mother, but he had years, he had memories, he had pieces of her left over to deal with. Irvine had... well, far less than that. Could he really begrudge what little Irvine had left?

Of course he could. 

“There's no time like the present to start sharing,” Seifer offered, taking the chance to stretch out on the couch. “Tell us about the lady seers of the line of Vascaroon.”

For a moment it was almost as if Irvine hadn't realized before this that Seifer was still present in the room. The look he shot the gunblader now was one of pure confusion, wrapped in speculation. Which, of course, ultimately turned into Irvine directing a questioning look at Nida. There was a question on his lips, clear as day, that he was obviously reluctant to ask. All Nida could do was sigh and head it off before Seifer was given a whack at asking what Irvine clearly wanted to know.

“He refuses to leave me alone,” Nida admitted, taking the chance to sit himself down once more. If only he wasn't such a nervous bundle of energy right now. “There's nothing more complex than that going on.”

“What...?” Seifer started to ask, before realization lit his face and he grinned insanely wide. “Oh my... Irvine knows your dirty little secret then?”

“Secret, yes. Dirty, no. There's nothing shameful about...”

“Seifer knows?” Irvine demanded more incredulously. “I thought this was supposed to be something that I was...”

“I'm more surprised that he'd tell a supposed lady killer like you about...”

“This is supposed to be a discussion about the prophetic abilities of our bloodline, not speculation about who does or doesn't know anything about a private life that isn't anyone's business?” The question hung in the air for a while, punctuated by Irvine and Seifer staring at Nida for the whole time. At last Nida could take it no longer. “Fine. Let's speculate. Yes, I've been in a relationship with a man. Elijah in case any of us somehow missed that point, which I highly doubt. Seifer found out on accident when I caught up with him in Winhill. No, nothing untoward happened, and he's held the secret quite well. Irvine, well, I don't know how he knew but he did. No, I'm not currently in a relationship with anyone. Seifer's mostly just here because he's developed a fondness for annoying the hell out of me. Now we're all on the same page so can we let it go and talk about something that actually seems likely to solve some of our problems?”

“I wouldn't want in those pants anyway,” Seifer mumbled, leading to a burst of laughter from Irvine. It left Nida with no choice but to delve into the reserves of spells in the back of his mind, and latch on to the only option he had to take control of the situation. Besides, there were few things quite so amusing as watching someone flail around in fury when the silence spell settled into place. 

Seifer's expression, almost true to form for him, was no where near amusing. As the blond tried to continue to joke and found that nothing was coming out of his mouth, his eyes narrowed and Nida barely had enough time to raise his arms to protect his head and throat before Seifer was lunging off of the couch and slapping him around the head. 

“Geez!” Irvine shouted, and soon there was a third body in the mix, this one trying to haul them all apart. At last Seifer was returned to the couch and Nida was left to smile smugly at him. Not that even that lasted long, as Irvine was sure to whack him upside the head with his hat.

“Can we all act like mature adults and just get to the point?” Irvine demanded.

“About time you came around to my way of thinking,” Nida chuckled before settling fully into his seat. “So... Seers...”

“Seers,” Irvine confirmed, returning to his seat and shaking his head. “There's a really long history on this. If you find some bit of history that suggests there was a seer, that was likely a woman in our family. That being said, what they saw isn't quite like what we do. I'm pretty sure it wasn't when they slept, and that things were more vague, more mysterious. The kinds of prophecy that are easier to understand in hindsight than foresight.”

“Even ours tend to work better that way,” Nida admitted, sighing. If only he knew what the recent one meant.

“Be that as it may, a lot of them didn't get out into the public. The truth is that most of the prophecies didn't seem to relate to the world in general, but to the overall prophecy of Vascaroon himself. Places that the heir would go, things he might find. Hints to riddles and clues to puzzles and lots of stuff like that. These prophecies were written down by the women, and passed from mother to daughter over time. Those women who didn't have children passed their collected prophecies down to other women of the line, until at last it was distilled into two volumes, one held by my other, one by yours. Before... Well, before I ended up at the orphanage my mother gave hers over to an old friend in Dollet for safe keeping.”

“And you've never gone after it?” Nida asked, frowning. 

“I don't... I've never wanted to live up to what was foretold. That only grew when the Zebalgans decided it was time to screw everything over because of... Well, what they thought you were. So I never really wanted to know what it said.”

“You're not concerned she lost it or read it?” 

Irvine shook his head, a faint smirk on his face. “Apparently the stuff is coded. Paranoia is understandable when you consider what the Zebalgans have done for the very rumor of the power. As for losing it... Well, I don't think that's likely.”

“Why?”

“More than once I've dreamt of holding it in my hands. I know that someday I'm going to go after it, I'm going to learn what I'm supposed to know. It's like dreaming of the altar. I know someday I'm going to be there, even if I don't want to. There is no avoiding the clear dreams.”

Nida nodded in understanding, before sighing and sitting further back in his chair. “So these journals hold the secrets to what you're fated to find. The only answer for finding Boyce, then, may be getting our hands on those journals.”

“Well, my mother's at the very least,” Irvine confirmed. “I've got a place to start, it shouldn't be too hard to get my hands on. Cracking it could be harder since no one ever taught me how to read it.”

“So we're left with potentially only half of the story,” Seifer mused, and the sound of his voice made Nida all but jump out of his seat. Seifer of course, smirked in response, and after a moment he started tossing an empty vial between his hands. Leave it to that smug bastard to have an echo screen on him all the time. 

“No,” Nida responded when his breath came back. “No. I know where to find the other half. Don't forget, Seifer, things have been sort of shaken up in my head recently. I know where to find my own mother's book...”

“Winhill?” Seifer asked, sighing as he spoke. 

“Winhill.”

* * * * * *

“Will you hurry up?” 

“Lay off, it's not like he had much sleep,” Irvine grumbled as he shuffled at Nida's side up the ramp onto the Ragnarok. “Not like any of us had much sleep, Seifer.”

“Yeah, well some of us have to finish up some paperwork and don't want to have to linger here because you two don't have enough pep in your step,” Seifer scoffed, rolling his eyes. 

“Maybe you should have finished it before coming to spend a few days in Balamb,” Nida snapped as he shifted his grip on his almost frustratingly light duffel bag. The thing held almost all of his meager possessions, unsurprising considering he had arrived at Garden out of the middle of no where. 

“Seifer, finish paperwork? As if,” Selphie laughed as she bounced past him up the ramp. “It's a wonder he hasn't run Galbadia into the ground.”

“Hey!” Seifer protested, swatting at Selphie as she rushed by him. “I do my paperwork in a timely manner.”

“That's what I taught him to do,” Nida mumbled under his breath to Irvine, smirking as he did so. “By the end he was doing all of my paperwork too.”

“I knew it!” Seifer roared in fury, already starting down the ramp, only to be stopped when he passed Squall and the other gunblader's hand fell to his shoulder to stop him. 

“You should be thanking him,” Squall insisted quietly. “Nida was the one who insisted when he transferred to Galbadia that you go with him and take over someday.”

With that Squall continued on and left Seifer there, staring down at Nida in wide eyes and and open mouth. Nida just chuckled as he passed Seifer, patting him on the shoulder as he went. “Don't worry, I just did it because I hate paperwork.”

All he could do was laugh as he reached the rest of the way up ramp, Irvine almost cackling at his side. At the top of the ramp they shook hands and parted ways, Irvine moving to follow Selphie off to wherever it was that she was going. Nida, still quite tired from his late night discussion with Seifer and Irvine, turned to make his way toward the only part of the Ragnarok that he was relatively unfamiliar with. Well, unfamiliar with since the remodeling had been done on the ship during the war. The Ragnarok had been overhauled to act as a troop carrier and mobile, airborne mother ship for the allied air forces. That of course, had necessitated creating a living area for the crew, and as the commanding officer Nida had never walked that area, either during or after its completion. Whenever he needed to meet with one of the crew they were summoned to either his office or his quarters. Even when he's been quietly relieved of duty for abandoning his post to go after Boyce he'd been allowed the use of his rooms. Now, though, he was by far one of the lower ranking individuals on the Ragnarok, not even given over the right to pilot the ship until he was 'checked out' by Veringas in Esthar. Maybe he could have claimed one of the larger rooms in the command area if it hadn't been for the fact that the Rag was planned to stop in Trabia and Galbadia to drop off the visiting Headmaster and SeeD Commander duos. After that the dragon ship was bound for Esthar, where Squall was due to meet with his father. Nida was ostensibly joining Squall in part as a guard, and part to pack up his apartment there to return to Balamb. The truth was less pleasant. A few hours with Odine trying to figure out just what happened to him, then two days under Veringas's careful evaluation to try and figure out just what it was that had led to his memories returning. And all of that didn't begin to figure in his quiet exit of Esthar with Kiros to return to Winhill to find what Nida was certain was secreted there: the diary of foresight kept by his birth mother.

All in all it was shaping up to be an unpleasant week for Nida, and all he could think about was trying to sleep. For one thing he felt like he was almost about to fall over from fatigue, he'd had too little sleep the night before, and his body still felt strained from his awakening on Centra. For another there was always the chance that his dreams might yield some new information that could lead them to Boyce without relying on searching for the lost power of Hyne. As much as he'd come to get behind Squall's plan, it didn't mean he thought it was a good idea. Any potential unleashing of the power of Hyne seemed foolish at the very best, and anything he could do to prevent that power from being unsealed he had resolved to do. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try the plan in case the dreams were as unhelpful as they'd always been. 

The room he selected at random looked much like any of the others he passed as he moved through the rather narrow corridors of the crew quarters. There were few marks that people spent much time here, the Rag now operating on what Nida would have considered a skeleton crew back during the war. Most of the rooms that had signs on the doors to indicate occupancy were close to the main part of the ship, leaving Nida a wide range of uninhabited choices as far away from the hustle and bustle of the ship, or at least the hustle and bustle that he could avoid. Still, when he opened the door the room was much like he expected, far too little space to expect to put four people in, but he didn't quite care. He'd slept in weirder, more cramped, and less comfortable places. Hell, he'd slept on a stone bed before, though in it's defense it was covered with a luxurious feather mattress. Still, it was little effort at all to throw his duffel into one of the small lockers, tuck his halberd safely away into another, and then curl himself up as small as possible in one of the narrow bunks. 

He didn't even have time to close his eyes before there was a knock on the door. There was more than just a passing urge to ignore the knocking, to pretend he wasn't even there. After all, what were the chances that someone randomly managed to find him when he'd set out so deliberately not to be found? More than that, what was the chance that someone had followed him here when he hadn't heard anything? He was too good to have not noticed that, right? 

Unless, of course, it was one person in particular. Irvine, after all, had a pretty seriously distinct stride and Selphie all but bounced through the halls. Seifer couldn't be at the door because he wouldn't have knocked, he just would have barged in assuming he would be welcome—which he would not—and Fujin hardly knocked in a quiet, polite manner. No, there was only one person it could be, and so Nida groaned and maneuvered himself out of the bunk and to his feet, as much as he hated it. 

“Can't I just sleep?” he asked of the door. Apparently that was all the invitation Squall needed because the door slid open and Squall slipped in, looking quite nonchalant. 

“One of these days I'll get a full night sleep,” Nida mumbled under his breath as Squall slid the door shut behind him. 

“I doubt that,” Squall responded as he moved to lean against the edge of the small table in the room. “I haven't had a full night since the last time Kadowaki tranqed me to sleep after returning from defeating Ultimecia.”

“Well, I'm not the Lion of Balamb. I should think that what is expected of me and what is expected of you is on vastly different levels,” Nida snarked as he sat down on the floor, resting his back against a locker door. 

“I wasn't a hero with a prophecy attached to me,” Squall countered, a slight smirk on his lips. “I was just a guy.”

“No, you weren't. You were the son of a war hero cum president...”

“King,” Squall corrected under his breath, as he always did. 

“...Who defeated a sorceress. One that, may I point out, you finally defeated later on. You were raised by the woman who was being used by an evil sorceress from the future to bring about her evil ends. A woman who took those powers into herself to protect her children, who were your friends, who helped you fight the sorceress in question. I could go further to point out that by all traditional senses you have been playing right into the hands of some forgotten prophecy, hell maybe some prophecy in those journals Irvine mentioned, but let's be clear here... I'm no hero with a prophecy. That's Irvine. I'm just a second stringer.”

Squall dismissed the whole tirade with a little wave of his hand. “Don't contradict me.”

“Is that an order?” 

“Yes.”

Nida stared for a moment, not quite having expected that response, before shaking his head. “Whatever. What is it that brings you here when I so desperately need sleep before suffering that Odine is likely to inflict upon me?” 

“Tell me about Elijah.”

“What?” 

“You heard me, Nida. Tell me about Elijah.”


	5. Part Four

“That better not be an order, Squall, because I'll have to say 'shove it' or 'go fuck yourself,' in fact, pick whichever offends you more. Take it and then find the nearest cliff to jump off of, Sir,” Nida snapped, half shocked by the bile in his voice, half frustrated that there wasn't more. Nothing, not even Squall's superior rank, could justify or qualify such an order. Who was he to ask something so personal?

“It is an order, and I'll ignore your inappropriate behavior if you start talking now.” 

“Who the hell are you to ask me this?” he demanded, all but jumping to his feet. “Why the fuck should I tell you anything? Anything relevant to what's happening is in my file. You know I was his friend. You have reports covering my encounters with him during the war. I gave you details on his death. You have everything you need from me!”

“One last chance to cooperate, Nomura,” Squall said smoothly as he rose, his voice calm and infuriating. “Talk to me. I'm not letting you dodge this conversation anymore.”

“Who's dodging? Not me. I have to be having a conversation to dodge it. I'm not even having a conversation. I'm...”

In retrospect, he shouldn't have touched Squall. He was a good fighter, he knew that he was better than he had been, even during the war. His nightmares were too terrible to let him sleep, and the only thing that had him out enough to help was to wear his body down with combat training. He was at his physical peak and wasn't too bad at unarmed combat. In fact the chances were that there were only a few people in the world that could easily take him in a close combat fight. The problem was that, in his rage, he had foolishly provoked a man near the top of that list. 

His fingers had barely started to wrap themselves around the fabric of Squall's collar when only two of Squall's fingers and his thumb wrapped around Nida's thumb. Before he could get a solid grip on the cloth, Squall was bending his thumb backwards, painfully. Nothing he could do could stop his hand from releasing Squall, and his knees started to give as Squall took it further and began to twist his arm at a painful angle via the thumb hold. A smart soldier would have let Squall put him in his place. A relaxed soldier would have admitted he had done something wrong and would have tapped out. Nida wasn't either of those right now. Instead as he went down to his knees he lashed out with an ankle sweep. Squall must have seen it coming because he released Nida and, as he fell, he caught himself on his hands and flipped back to his feet even as Nida got back to his feet.

“Be smart, Nomura,” Squall warned him as he shifted into a defensive stance. “This isn't a big room. I'm going to hurt you if this keeps up.”

“You sound so confident, sir,” Nida spat, but he knew it was justified confidence. Still, he shifted into his own stance and smirked as confidently as he could feign.

“I am,” Squall mumbled, and Nida couldn't help but lean in to hear him better. It was all Squall needed to do to catch Nida off guard. Instead of punching Squall just rammed into Nida, shoving him hard against the heavy, metal lockers. There was a stabbing pain in his back from a latch jabbing into his spine, and Nida grit his teeth against it. Squall didn't stop there, though. His forearm slammed against Nida, forcing him even harder against the lockers and holding him in position. That was all, though. Squall did nothing to protect himself from any of the ten ways Nida could get out of the hold, meaning that as far as he saw it, the fight was over. 

“Are we done?” Squall asked, frowning. 

“Are you still asking about...”

“If all of this is because of the relationship you had with him, I've known for a while. It wasn't my business, so I never stood in the way of what you said you could or would do.”

“You...” It was almost like his brain had shorted out. Maybe Squall saw that in him somehow. As it was he released Nida, returning without comment to his chair. Nida was left to slide, painfully, back to the floor. They were back where they had started, Nida one secret short to show for it all. “Irvine or Seifer?”

Now it was Squall's turn to look shocked. There was not other way to construe the wide eyes and jaw hanging open. “Seifer and Irvine...”

All Nida could do was sigh. “Looks like I'm the only one terrible at keeping my secret. Really I should have had more confidence in their ability to keep their mouths shut.”

“Secrets are best kept by one,” Squall pointed out, shaking his head. “I found out on my own. After Elijah's escape from Balamb we needed to figure out if he had an accomplice. I went through access code records for a long time, wondering why he was only in his own room over night part of the time. It took a lot of time reviewing access logs to notice yours had a similar and mostly reversed pattern of odd logs. After that it was easy to put two and two together with your noted history and the behavior I saw when you two were together.”

“Were we that obvious?” Nida moaned, burying his face in his hands. “Hyne, does anyone not know about...”

“It wasn't obvious by any stretch,” Squall sighed. “But I'm observant as much as silent. The signs were very small, barely there, unless you had a reason to look for them. I did.”

“And you willingly sent me into the stronghold of not only our enemies who saw me as a weapon, but into what you might see as the arms of my lover?”

“I didn't want you to go,” Squall pointed out in his painfully rational way that made Nida look up at last. “But when it was forced on me I had faith in you. Your previous encounters with Elijah always found you choosing Garden over the Zebalgans. Besides, I have a feeling that even if I had kept you from going you would have found a way to where fate was pulling you.”

“It would have killed you to go,” Nida whispered after a moment. “I knew it would have.”

“But none of us knew what it would do to you,” Squall responded. “I didn't tell Kadowaki about your relationship, didn't acknowledge it because after what you did on your return I would have had to keep you back after it all. Forgive me, but I did what I had to so we could win.” 

With a sigh Nida looked down at his hands, remembering the blood on them. Elijah's blood on his hands. His own blood after had punched the mirror in this bathroom. It was hard to think that he'd been so willing to provoke others that day. So willing to die for an action only he thought was a crime.

“I wanted to die,” he admitted, looking up into Squall's eyes. “There's something about being forced to kill the man you love because he can't control his own mind that breaks you.”

“There's a reason I sent you to Galbadia, that I forced the vacation on you,” Squall agreed. “I was hoping your first work back would be teaching and working with monster hunts. Nothing to recall what happened. If I'd had my way there would have been more time.”

“And instead you dredge up old memories,” Nida grumbled bitterly. “Remind me to thank you later.”

Squall sighed, leaning back in his chair and looking terribly concerned. “This was going to come up no matter what either of us wanted. If Boyce is still alive, and I fear he is, all of it is going to come back up. I'd rather you not be involved, but we both know you will be, no matter what we want. And Boyce isn't going to hold back, when there are buttons to push. He'll use whatever edge he can get to hurt us, and if you're this sensitive with a friend...”

“We're friends?” Nida asked, mostly sarcastic. “Commanders don't have friends.”

“Neither of us believes that,” Squall pointed out. “And neither of us begins to believe that you're okay. You still carry his journal on you, don't you?”

Nida froze, halfway between a denial and clutching at where the journal was secreted in his pocket. How did Squall know about that?

“You forget, it was on my desk,” Squall said with a shake of his head. “Seifer took it and I knew where it ended up, but I never did anything about it. I only guessed it was a journal. Elijah wrote in it on the grounds often enough that I had a suspicion. I figured that if it had anything important for the war efforts you would find a way to tell me. Now I have to ask, is there any comfort in it?”

“He didn't blame me for his death. He knew a moment would come where we would have to fight and he wanted me to know he wanted to lose. That he hated what Boyce had made him.”

“Do you blame yourself?”

“How can I not when he haunts me?” Nida asked, almost unthinkingly. 

There was silence for a time, and in that silence he couldn't help but think of the dreams the familiar, red-clad swordsman coming at him, Rupio in hand, ready to avenge himself. And Nida, he always stood there, staring, unable to move, Elijah's name on his lips. 

“Haunts you?”

“I dream of him, coming to avenge himself.”

Squall sat up straighter, his eyes staring hard down at Nida. “You dream of him?”

“Since after Boyce's fall. Too often makes it hard to sleep.” 

For a while Squall was silent. Then, as if he came to some decision, he slipped off of the chair and moved to sit next to Nida on the floor, his back against the lockers as well.

“Have you talked to anyone about all of this? And I don't mean in passing, either. I mean seriously talked.”

“No,” he admitted, staring down at his hands again. “Seifer isn't... Well, he isn't the easiest to talk to at times. And Irvine... It would be strange in ways I can't explain. I tried escaping in Galbadia avoiding the Zebalgan students, but I ended up letting them get hurt because of it. I tried to run away from it in Esthar, seeking...” 

“Comfort or affection in others very different from him,” Squall provided, leaving Nida momentarily shocked. After a while he did nod in agreement, but only after he got a furious blush under control. “In the end, I just gave up and tried to work myself to exhaustion.”

“Never a good choice, trust me,” Squall frowned at the idea in an almost familiar way. “I may not have you and Irvine's gift, but I'm sure of one thing, Nida. For what comes next were going to need everyone at their best. Especially those I can most easily explain the absence of. And of those people...”

“I'm the one that is at their mental and emotional worst. But what am I supposed to try that I haven't already failed with?”

“Talking. Start at the beginning, at coming to Balamb. Talk until there isn't anything left. I'll listen. And when you're done, you might feel better, but you will feel in control of yourself.”

“Why?” Nida couldn't help but ask.

“Because there will be someone else helping you. Remember him for who he was. Don't ask me why, but if it helps. Or so Laguna always said when he told me about my mother. And he always seemed to carry himself lighter after.”

“Okay. I'll try. Just... Don't judge me.”

“How could I?”

* * * * * *

“Yo, Nomura. It occurred to... me... Well, well. I wasn't expecting to see you here, Leonhart.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Nida let his eyes creep open so he could confirm the horror his ears told him had to be playing out. Sure enough he caught sight of Seifer standing by the door, a pair of coffee cups in his hands. While he couldn't be sure with how heavy his eyelids were, it seemed that Seifer was slowly looking back and forth between where Squall was sitting at the tiny table, reading through Elijah's journal, and where Nida was stretched out on his bunk. Not that he, of course, remembered lying down or even falling asleep. When he really thought about it those facts mixed with his grogginess suggested Squall had knocked him out with tranqs or magic without his knowledge. Which, of course, suggested Squall had moved him to the bunk as well, but he couldn't tell for sure. Some people were more suggestible when drowsy, and who was to say he wasn't one? How would he even know? Elijah had never said anything and...

He hadn't dreamt. It was a sudden realization that set in like a load of bricks. Well, that sealed the question, didn't it? Even when he nodded off for a minute Elijah's ghost came for him in his dreams. 

“I'm glad to see someone else thought of your mental and emotional well being. At least, that is what I assume you came here regarding, Seifer,” Squall said nonchalantly, not even looking up from the small journal. When had Nida given him that? He couldn't remember, but he was certain he had to have if Squall was willing to violate his limited privacy to that degree. 

“Of course I did,” Seifer snapped, walking right past Squall and holding a cup of coffee out as Nida twisted himself out of the bunk. “He's one of the posse, he's my responsibility.”

“Irvine's claim of kinship is a better claim on being responsible for him than your self-created band of what others would see as misfits,” Squall observed calmly. “And as his commanding officer I have a better...”

“Commanders are only tangentially responsible for the moral and can easily pass the buck,” Seifer countered easily, holding the mug steady until Nida had a good grip and finally pulled it free. They'd had a few accidents where one of them had failed to wait for the other to get a good grip and resulted in searing hot coffee poured over desks, legs, and paperwork enough to make for some late nights at Galbadia Garden. 

“They are more responsible when the individual in question is their second,” Squall responded just as smoothly, leaving Nida to stare into his coffee and concentrate as hard as possible on his mug so that he didn't drop it in shock. 

“Second? That's news. Not any that you shared with the Inter-Garden Council either,” Seifer replied, a hard look on his face. “Allocation of high level SeeD resources is supposed to be done with the approval of the Council.”

“That holds true for any appointment outside of personnel assisting in the management and operation of my office,” Squall answered, a faint, smug smirk on his face. Nida was left staring at Squall instead of drinking, caught up in the new form of power play between the two famed fighters. 

“Loophole,” Seifer sighed.

“Loophole,” Squall confirmed, still smirking. “One that does not limit his deployment on missions as are necessary.”

“And no one thought it might be an idea to consult me?” Nida asked wearily before taking a sip of his coffee. Of course they hadn't. It seemed rare that people would think to consult him about anything other than his dreams. 

“The Council has been pushing me to select a second for months,” Squall said as he finally set Elijah's journal aside. “You're really the only option, Nomura. We don't have a SeeD of equivalent skill or experience available to us.”

“I can't come back to a peaceful life, can I?” Nida sighed, shaking his head. “My life is always out of my hands.”

“It's what you get when you sell your life to a mercenary operation on the level of the Gardens,” Seifer chuckled, leaning against the lockers. “As much as I hate it, Squall's got a point. I just wouldn't have expected him to make a move so soon, or without filling the rest of us in.”

“I wasn't sure whether I was going to go through with it or not until I spoke with him,” Squall admitted, leaning back in his chair. 

“What sealed the deal?” Seifer questioned, leaning back in his own seat and sipping at his own coffee. “The devilishly good looks?”

“Spare me,” Nida groaned, returning his attention to the coffee. “It doesn't matter. What brings you, Seifer?”

“I was going to talk to you about...” Sefier's eyes flicked briefly toward the journal that Squall had set aside before he continued, “Elijah. I figured this whole thing was going to bring it back up.”

“Invariably,” Nida agreed. “But Squall beat you to the punch, clearly. So if that's all...”

“It isn't,” Seifer and Squall said as one, Seifer annoyed and Squall amused. 

“You know, I could really use some sleep if you two want to go and play your games elsewhere,” he grumbled into his mug, though with no hope that it would drive them away. 

“You'll have plenty of time to sleep when Veringas is looking over you,” Seifer dismissed him almost absently. “Not with Odine but...”

“You're kidding me,” Nida snapped, all but jumping to his feet. “You're really putting me back into the hands of that...”

“I think I will leave,” Squall announced as he stood, lifting Elijah's journal as he rose. “You don't mind if I take this, do you? Good. I'll send someone to wake you when we hit Esthar, assuming Seifer lets you get some sleep.”

“Squall,” Nida protested as the other man escaped, but to no affect. Within moments he was left alone with Seifer, a door between him and Squall. “Dammit why the fuck does the universe seem to enjoy dropping things like this on me. Never mind. It doesn't matter. What the hell do you want that is more important than me finally getting some real sleep?”

The look on Seifer's face was almost priceless. Somewhere between shock and indignation, and mixed with what was entirely approval. 

“Well, looks like someone grew a backbone while he was who knows where for who knows how long,” Seifer chuckled, shaking his head once he recovered. “Sometimes I worry you go along with what is thrown at you too much. But then there are moments like in Winhill, moments like this, where I remember just why you're worthy of being a member of my posse. You've got fight in you, Nomura, and if you ever just embraced that, the world would have a new force to reckon with.”

“I'd rather have sleep than praise,” he snapped, standing and moving to put his coffee down on the table. For a moment he thought of returning to the bunk, but in the end he just took the seat Squall had vacated. “What brings you to my humble abode?”

“Well, I was going to talk to you about how this all was going to affect you and Elijah and all of that shit, but clearly Squall's covered those bases.”

“Which makes your continued presence kind of confusing,” Nida agreed, frowning at him. “Stop beating around the bush and just talk.”

“First, forgive me, but I feel like I need to be the gay best friend or something,” Seifer chuckled, leaning forward and resting his chin on an uplifted hand. “So pretend I've got some of that terrible fashion sense that you see in all of those movies or among the normal populous, and tell me... Squall?”

“You're an ass,” Nida growled. 

“I've been aware of that for years,” Seifer admitted, giving Nida a playful eye wiggling. “Anyway, the way your eyes were following...”

“Once, but before things got complicated, and I've got no time to even remotely consider stuff like that,” Nida cut him off. “There, you happy? Can I go back to sleep?”

“Later,” Seifer allowed, leaning back and slipping out of his 'gay friend' pose or whatever that had been meant to be. “The important question now is this: do you want an out?”

Nida was left staring at Seifer, blinking and gaping and trying to figure out just what his friend meant. “Out of what?”

“Odine. Veringas. Esthar. All of this. I know you feel it's your responsibility or something, but... Fuck it isn't as all of us haven't given too much for this world. You need a break. You were supposed to come back to a relatively cushy position. Of course I didn't know Squall intended to groom you to follow him or whatever he's up to, but there you go. It was supposed to be easy, and it wasn't like you had somewhere else to go. But now... I've got more than a respectable nest egg. Fu and Rai have offered to help out as well, or at least they will. They like you, can't imagine why, but hey, there it is. We'll set you up somewhere quiet, somewhere far away. Change your name, change your clothes, change everything so no one can claim you again. You can't go back to Winhill, of course. If Boyce is after you that isn't a safe place anymore. But what about Fisherman's Horizon? No, maybe that's too obvious. I guess Esthar...”

“Stop,” Nida commanded, even as he smiled faintly. “It's kind of you to say all of this. Honestly, you've come a long way from the asshole I was bunked up with when I first came to Garden...”

“Shit, that was you, wasn't it?” Seifer groaned, his hands coming up to cover his face. “If I'd just taken you under my perfect wings back then we could have spared you a lot of trouble with Elijah and all this shit...”

“Don't go down that road. I've walked it a lot, and it isn't worth it. Anyway, things might not have gone so well if I'd been one of your group back during the Ultimecia thing. Garden needed me.”

“Yeah, and it would have blown for Squall and them if I'd had just one more guy to back me up. With you alongside Fu and Rai things might have ended up differently and I doubt that would have been a good thing.”

“I think you overestimate just how good I was back then,” Nida mumbled, rolling his eyes. “I think you overestimate just how good I am now.”

“Either way,” Seifer smirked, “whatever happens next I'm just a call away. I don't care if I have to steal the Rag itself. You call, we'll all be there. All three of us. We stick together, Nida.”

“You're a sentimental ass. But thanks. It... Means a lot.”

“Besides, I've got a few bones to pick with Odine, so if you want me to get off in Esthar with you and make sure the clown-job doesn't cut you open...”

“Idiot,” Nida laughed, leaning back happily. “He wants to examine the Knight-Sorceress bond badly, and since he can't have Squall or Cid, he'll happily jump at the chance to jab you with a needle and then look in that empty skull of yours.”

“I'm being serious here,” Seifer said as he stood. “Something... I don't know, something about this feels final. I can't explain it and I don't have one of you and Irvine's fancy dreams to support it, but we've hit the turning point. And damn if I fail this time. So, if you need it...”

“I know where to find you,” Nida agreed, still smiling. “But it will be so much easier to ask for help when I've had enough sleep to remember the number to call.”

“I guess that's reasonable,” Seifer admitted as he backed toward the door. “Get some sleep, Nida. Not sure how many chances you're going to get for it in the future.”

“If the last two passes at war were any indication, no where near enough.”


	6. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missed January because life got... Well, too lifey. It's all 'blah blah blah handle this hurdle now.' So I did. Now I'm back.

It was always something of a wonder to land at the Esthar Airstation. There was just something about strolling down the Ragnarok's ramp and watching the wonders of the hidden city unfold before him. One moment his vision was occupied by the standard and familiar sights and sounds of the cargo hold of the Rag, the next he had descended just enough to be treated to the sight of the large, translucent blue ring that circled the landing pad the Rag was assigned to, the ring radiating a soft blue light of its own that was so like what lit the rest of the city. Almost immediately the hum and low buzz of the sounds of the Ragnarok's systems running through post-flight checks faded into the faint, musical chimes that announced an arriving flight. By the time his feet touched true Esthari territory there was the standard welcoming party sweeping through the doors of the distant ring, looking almost like they were floating with how perfectly they strode, always keeping the hems of their traditional robes just short of brushing the ground. Nida had tried wearing a set of the robes when he had been on his 'vacation' in the city, only to find that for all the poise and predatory grace that came with martial training didn't quite translate into the same kind of elegance the Esthari people seemed to possess to a child. 

“A pleasure to see home?” Squall asked, his voice low, almost conspiratorial, as he passed and slowly made his way toward the advancing party.

“More your home than mine,” Nida countered, speeding up to take his proper official place a half a step behind Squall. Luckily their little play at Nida's role in this trip hadn't called for Nida to carry Squall's bag for him, leaving the only recently awoken SeeD to only his own duffel and weapon. Squall, of course, looked easy and comfortable carrying his bag, but what was to be expected? Leonhart was the son of the President, had a suite waiting him at the Presidential Palace, and had his own store of clothing and uniforms here to account for everything he might need. Nida, on the other hand, had packed more than just what little clothes he had: his pending meetings with Odine and Veringas and then trip to Winhill had called for him to drag along his ruined uniform, several reports and sets of notes on what he remembered, and even his tambo somewhere near the bottom of his bag. Not that his personal possession took up much room, but Nida couldn't help but worry that what he had with him was all he was going to get. What, after all, were the chances that his landlord had just taken everything left in his apartment and sold it? Had he remembered to set up an automatic payment for the rent? What if someone had broken in?

“Neither of us are from here,” Squall answered, his voice breaking through the anxiety that had quietly been taking hold of Nida. “Winhill is your home, and Garden is mine.”

“We're both Garden kids,” Nida countered just as easily, though he knew it was different. He had a family he had remembered from before the time when he became a weapon. Squall had a man he had only come to know recently, stories about a mother who had loved him, and very little memory of his past. Then again, Squall had a family now. Had the 'Orphanage Gang,' had a father, and even had a sister who had known his parents in a way he didn't and who was able to share what she knew. Nida... He had an empty home too full of memories, a grave stone, and more questions that he could even begin to fathom about who he really was and where he was from.

“Yes,” Squall agreed, much to Nida's surprise. “When there is nothing else, we have that.”

It was all the time they had for chitchat as the Esthari greeting party swept into easy hearing range and flowed gracefully into deep bows. 

“It is our honor to welcome you back to Esthar, Sirs Leonhart and Nomura,” the man in the lead, dressed in the deep purple of a government official, greeted them. “A vehicle has been prepared to deliver you to the Presidential Palace, and has been equipped with light refreshments to ease you after your no doubt long journey.”

“Sir?” Nida asked just under his breath. 

“Almasy didn't tell you? You were knighted after you disappeared,” Squall responded, and the tone of it told Nida all he needed to know. It hadn't been a happy thing in Squall's opinion. No, it had been assumed by Esthar to be a posthumous honor. Wonderful. Apparently Odine had presumed he had killed Nida when the SeeD forces had been unable to find him. Worse, it meant Nida was going to have to deal with more formality than he had never known as a 'simple' SeeD and war hero in Esthar. Knighthoods, after all, were few and far between thing in a country that was still touchy over their part rule by Sorceress Adel.

“Wonderful,” Nida all but threw his head back as he groaned, no where near subtle about his distaste. Squall, for a shock, gave the littlest twitch of his shoulder that could only mean he was amused by the display, for all that the Esthari were trying to hide their shock at his behavior. 

“We're running a bit ahead of schedule...” Squall observed after a moment, and as Nida looked back at the Esthari they shifted uncomfortably before him. Well, something told him that whatever Squall said next was going to be positively interesting.

“Yes, that would be an accurate statement,” the lead man acknowledged even as he seemed about ready to start chewing at his lip over the nerves that came with Squall giving someone the hard kind of look that they were now. “The President...”

“Has meetings between now and when I am scheduled to meet with him. I checked with Minister Seagill on the flight. I was informed, in no uncertain terms, that the President's meetings are too important to be interrupted. We'll pay for the driver to catch a ride wherever he wants, and will use the vehicle ourselves.”

With that Squall strode past the gaping Esthari group, leaving Nida torn between falling over from the laughter threatening him or stumbling after Squall and reveling in the short escape from whatever was expected of him. In the end it was duty that had him dashing to close Squall's growing lead, all but holding his breath to keep from laughing. Squall, of course, was far from fooled as he reached Squall's side just in time to hold the door for him with merely a smile.

“You enjoyed that,” Nida accused as he followed Squall through the door and past the customs checkpoint without breaking step as he flashed his SeeD credentials. 

“Yes,” Squall admitted as they strode across the narrow ring. This time he didn't even give Nida a chance to make the door first to hold it, letting any illusion that they were here for official duty slip as he held the door open instead.

“You're a terrible role model,” Nida laughed as he slipped through the door and led Squall toward the sleek Esthari car waiting on the edge of the road. 

“I never asked to be one,” Squall countered easily as he opened the driver's door and turned the fully of his icy glare on the driver. 

Strangely the driver didn't flinch at the look. Instead he met Squall's gaze levelly, sighed, shook his head, and slipped easily from the vehicle. As Squall slipped in the driver even went so far as to hold his hand out, foot tapping impatiently. Nida found himself staring at the exchange as Squall pulled a rather large gil bill from his pocket and hand it over to the driver. The man nodded in satisfaction, picked up the bag Squall had abandoned as he climbed into the car, and then moved to Nida, staring at the duffel he was still carrying. After a moment Nida handed the bag over to the man, who promptly went to place both in the trunk. All Nida could do was round the car in a daze and climb in to the front passenger seat. Almost as soon as he had the door closed Squall pulled away from the curb.

“What...” Nida started to ask, only to have Squall make a satisfied sound in the back of his throat.

“He remembered me,” Squall answered the mostly unspoken question. 

“You do this regularly?” 

“It's better than sticking around and letting them harass me, or getting hauled in to experience more of King Loire than is strictly necessary when he's already intending to take me out to dinner.”

“You've got dinner with him tonight? No problem, I miss the pizza...”

A simple shake of his head was enough to stop Nida in his verbal tracks, leaving him staring at Squall in confusion. 

“Unfortunately, I refuse to have to deal with my father alone tonight. Someone else can live with his stories tonight,” Squall insisted.

“But he's your...”

“Doesn't matter,” Squall answered shortly. “You're joining us for dinner. That's an order.”

“Wonderful. You always come up with the worst ones.”

Squall didn't respond, leaving Nida to stare through the window, waiting to see just where they were bound. Not that he focused on the sight all that much. In fact they were driving for several minutes before Nida realized that he was growing increasingly familiar with the landmarks around them. 

“You know where my apartment is,” he observed at last, earning a small nod from Squall. Now there was something he hadn't expected. Yes, Squall had been able to reach him because of having his comm redirect to the land-line in the apartment, but he hadn't let anyone know where he was staying in his down time. He had meant to recover there in private. To overcome the memories of war that hadn't left him alone while he stayed at Galbadia Garden. There had been too much there that was familiar, even if it was different. There had been people who had known what he had done in the war. There had been people asking Seifer for stories about all the battles he led under Zell to help protect Galbadia. There were the whispers when he passed older students and SeeDs about how he had been the one to kill a Galbadian SeeD named Joshua who had been a Zebalgan leader. And there had been the dreams.

Not, of course, that Esthar had managed to take many of those away. But there had been things here that had helped. There had been things that weren't here that helped even more. It had been, for what little time he had managed to be free of Garden and SeeD, to be a home. Now, as with that middle of the night call from Squall that had dragged him to Odine's lab, that space was going to be invaded.

“Of course,” Squall answered, his voice having just the slightest hint of amusement to it. “While the Esthari officials checked the city and the military the area outside of the city right after the incident, SeeD came in to do their own investigation a bit later. Irvine and Seifer searched your apartment for any clues, though we didn't expect to find anything. Seifer also took care of personally interrogating Odine.”

“Oh god,” Nida found himself all but whimpering at that revelation. There was a tension between Odine and Seifer that there wasn't between anyone else in the higher levels of SeeD. Everyone else had been kept away from Odine's experiment with controlled miniaturized Time Compression bubble for various reasons that had to do with ability to understand the experiment, their patience, or just how they personally felt about Odine. Seifer, on the other hand, had been kept away because Odine wanted to use him to study how becoming a Sorceress Knight affected a person, and felt that the best way to do it was to take Seifer apart piece by piece. Seifer, on the other hand, was kept away from Odine because he had more than once referenced a willingness to take Odine's 'clown-head' from his shoulders if he so much as touched a needle in his presence. 

“A sentiment I can understand,” Squall agreed. “I smoothed things over later, but Odine, needless to say, took a few weeks off of work after that encounter.”

“I understand,” Nida sighed as the vehicle turned and pulled at last into the almost tiny parking structure near his apartment. The people who lived in this part of the city tended to prefer the transit tubes to their own vehicles, meaning Squall had the pick of almost the entirety of the ten vehicle lot. “Seifer was always something of a...”

“Problem,” Squall finished for him as he pulled into a spot and parked. “He's better now than he was when we were kids. Some of that is really recent.”

It was an oblique sort of compliment, but Nida couldn't help but smile at it. Leadership, that had been the core of the change. And he had helped to put Seifer in the position to let leadership mature him. Not that he could take anywhere near half of the credit. After all, without Squall none of it would have been possible.

“Well, I suppose I should check to see if there's anything left,” Nida said after a deep breath. “Would you mind wait...”

“Yes,” Squall cut in as he turned off the vehicle. “We've got time before I'm expected. I'll help.”

The look on his face, though almost completely blank, had enough there for Nida to see that Squall wasn't going to budge on this topic. Just what he needed, Squall looking through the scattered remains of the life he'd been literally taken from. Pieces he'd always meant to clean up and process before returning to the life of a mercenary. There were things here he hadn't meant to share with anyone. It was bad enough Seifer and Irvine had just marched through it. Then again, he was certain the reason it was those two was because they had insisted, mostly to protect one of his few secrets, one they both possessed. Ironically enough, Squall had known anyway. So, really, what was the point of hesitating? It wasn't as if anything had been outwardly readable about it in the first place.

“Let's hope it's all still there,” he whispered to himself as he pushed the door open. 

* * * * * *

“Nice place.”

Nida didn't respond to the off-hand comment, in part because he had no clue just how to do so. As the first through the door into what was still—thankfully—his apartment, there was no chance for him to look at Squall, to read the subtleties of his expression to come up with some hint as to just what was meant by the comment. Instead he heard the comment as he was kneeling by the door, removing his shoes as he always did. Once that was done he stood and moved into the small space that was his Esthari studio apartment. The place was as attractive as he'd left it, but that mostly due to the fact that his SeeD training had made him the kind of man who left a place neat, and the pre-furnished state of the the apartment meant that everything miraculously matched everything else. 

“It's not home,” Nida countered as he strode purposefully for the closet in what passed for the bedroom area. “Have you ever spent much time in Winhill?”

“No,” Squall admitted, and there was a tired edge in his voice that made Nida think he regretted it. It was a shame. Since the war Nida had been in a position to know that the people of the village desperately wished to know more of their 'lost son' as they sometimes referred to Squall. The fact that Squall hadn't taken the chance to visit was a shame. Of course, he didn't know the place as home, and the place that had been his home was the residence of a woman a bit older than them that was an 'outsider' as Winhill saw her. 

“You should. They'd welcome a chance to know you, Squall. Raine was... Loved. You'd be amazed by the stories they tell about her, as well as Ellone and her parents,” Nida said as he started to dig through the closet for the variety of boxes and bags he'd left in there when he'd 'moved' in. They would be important for the whole packing everything out, and so long as they were going to waste some time here, well, he might as well start packing. 

“You've heard stories...”

The way Squall trailed off was enough to pull Nida pull himself out of the closet a bit sooner than he expected, his hands burdened with bags and boxes. It didn't take long for him to find what Squall had done with himself, after all, the bed Squall was siting on was only a few feet away. Almost immediately he dropped his armload and moved to sit next to Squall. Already he regretted telling him about the stories, because Squall, well-controlled Squall Leonhart, was staring down at his feet, his hands folded in his lap. It was a type of break in his normal composure that Nida hadn't seen before and wasn't sure how to deal with. 

“You should come with Kiros and me to Winhill,” he said at last, not sure what else he could say. “While I'm looking for the diary, Kiros can...”

“They don't like him,” Squall interrupted, sounding strangely certain. “They never did. Thought he was sort of suspicious, especially since he took Laguna away.”

Nida was left to stare at Squall in confusion. “What... How could you even...”

“Ellone's powers. She showed us when Kiros arrived in Winhill to get Laguna. They were already suspicious enough of Laguna, but they took him in stride for Raine's sake, and Ellone's. And because of how he helped them. They won't talk to...”

Squall stopped short when Nida finally found himself unable to hold back his laughter. Of course, the look that he earned for the escaping chuckle was one that was probably meant to be betrayed, but there was an uncertainty to it. But of course there was. Squall hadn't been to Winhill since the war, except for his short trip in to fetch Nida and Seifer after their little unauthorized trip that led to the death of one Zebalgan Council member and the capture of another. There was clearly a part of Squall that wasn't sure whether he should be hurt. A part that wanted to be told that he was wrong.

“Think about it, Squall. Winhill was a town that was terrorized by Adel in her attempts to capture Ellone. One attempt killed her family. Another finally succeeded and grabbed a sweet little girl that was loved, if feared to some degree. Kiros helped Laguna avenge her family. Since then Kiros has been the village's main point of contact with Laguna, which we did have before you opened them back up to the world just so you know. Maybe they are less open with him than they would be with someone like me who grew up there and left, but they don't hate him. In the grand scheme he probably comes just below me on the desirably scale. And you, well, you rank higher than either Kiros or myself.”

“But you're one of them,” Squall pointed out, and Nida again found himself chuckling, this time a little bitterly. 

“You're a son of Winhill. You were born there, and cared for there until your mother passed. That wasn't immediate, just so you know. I, on the other hand, came later. I was never one of them in that way. Think about it, Squall. The village I came from, the place I lived among the Zebalgans, it was destroyed by Adel's forces. And please, I can see you're going to say something, so just don't, okay? I know what you think, the timing is off. I said it was five when the village I was born in was destroyed, and it was Adel. Except we're the same age and... Yeah, not everything that was caused by Adel happened in her lifetime, and there were things done in her name after her sealing. Supporters of the Sorceress that continued her work after what Laguna did. They were responsible for the destruction of my home, so I would still count myself as a war orphan. But because of that I didn't come to Winhill until I was nearly six. It... Isn't the same.”

“I don't get it,” he admitted, and Nida sighed. 

“It's small town mentality, but I guess you could think about it as how an organization views members who have grown up with the group as opposed to people who come into the group from outside. Hesitation, even when they prove themselves over time.”

That got a nod from Squall, enough of one for Nida to feel like he'd finally got his point across. “The truth of the matter, Squall, is that they see you as belonging there. All you have to do is approach them.”

There was silence, as there ever was, from Squall for another minute, before the man finally pushed himself from the bed. “We should get some of this packed. Where should I start?”

“None of the furniture is mine, or the stuff in the kitchen. Closets, drawers, bathroom, decorations. If you see it, just throw it in something,” Nida said, also pushing himself to his feet. “I'd prefer to handle the bathroom. Figure out what I do and don't need, you know?”

Squall just nodded, scooped up a bag, and made his way for the closet by the front door. There wasn't much there, if Nida remembered correctly, but there was enough to keep him busy for a bit. Enough here to keep both of them busy, really. At least, until the dinner that he really didn't want to get dragged into. But hadn't life since joining SeeD been about doing things that were necessary whether he wanted to or not? This was just another one of those times. 

* * * * * *

“Well, if it isn't the one who got away!” 

“Good afternoon, Michel,” Nida responded with a sigh as he dropped his bag next to the small table in the back of the surprisingly large office that had been attached to a astoundingly larger research laboratory dedicated to the Guardian Force researcher. The table was the clear choice for talking as there were a variety of covered plates and bowls on the tables that surely secreted one of the fabulous meals Michel Veringas preferred to have their longer discussions over. After the Zebalgan War Nida had been given over to Veringas as an assistant in his research into GFs recovered from the Zebalgans, as much as a punishment for his flight with Irvine to capture Boyce as for his surprisingly strong and insightful connection with his GF of choice, Siren. So meals such as this had grown to be a common thing for him, to the point where he was certain that Michel would have made sure to pick his favorite foods. 

“For future reference, I would prefer not to be referred to as the 'one who got away,'” he added as he flopped down into the only chair other than Michel's that was free of mounds of papers, books, and other odds and ends like spools of wire and boxes of beads of semi-precious stones. “It makes me sound like more than just a research test subject.”

“You were always more than a test subject,” the other man chuckled as he reached for a large metal pot on the table and poured two dangerously full cups of coffee from it. “I considered you more of a... head researcher on one of my projects.”

Just like always Veringas turned his attention fully to the coffees before him, going through the motions of the precise measurements of sugar and very studious stirring necessary to complete the beverages without spilling. It was another little routine that stemmed from Nida distracting him while pouring coffee the first time they had a meal like this and then insisting Michel would never be able to finish the drinks in that state. Thankfully it gave Nida time to compose himself for this whole situation. After all, he had come straight to Veringas's new research complex almost immediately after escaping from five hours with Odine, hours that frankly counted up there in some of the most strenuous and horrific in his life. Which, in the grand scheme of things, was saying quite a bit.

Still, it was a welcome chance to catch his breath and look over the scientist that had somehow become his friend. Surprisingly little had changed in Michel since they had seen each other last, except for maybe his restored passion and level of research in Guardian Forces. When Veringas had been brought to Garden to look over the newly acquired Mateas GF he had been excited to finally do applied research into the area he had spent the last several years doing theoretical work on: distinct levels of GFs and how their connection to their hosts would affect memory or allow communication. Now Veringas, from what little Nida had learned the night before at dinner with Squall and the President, was doing in-depth research on bond formation between GFs and their users, ranging from why the creatures could speak more easily with some users than others, and how strong bonds affected summonings. Squall and the other Garden leaders had been lending SeeDs to Veringas for the research, as well as handing over the war heroes themselves. Only Nida had been kept free of this research as he had spent months after the war as Veringas's only subject as part of his agreement with Squall to allow him to retire from SeeD. 

Not, of course, that the retirement had really managed to take, what with his almost immediate exit to be the Galbadia Garden SeeD Commander for a while.

Yet the research, or maybe age, was finally beginning to tell on Michel. When last Nida had seen the man his short-cropped hair had still been straight brown, but now gray was beginning to show through on his temples in a way that Nida hadn't noticed on President Loire, a man only two years Michel's younger. Other than that, though, almost nothing had changed. Michel still favored small glasses that he didn't wear high to fully frame his laughing green eyes, but since he looked over the top of them to read Nida had stopped being surprised by that. So too had he kept the odd mish-mash of slacks worn with a random t-shirt, this time one advertising an Esthari band called Arid Sprogs. It was never anything less than some band or food or entertainment related shirt that did everything but scream of a professional scientist. Somehow it was both reassuring and unnerving to see so little change in the other man. Maybe it was because Nida had thought the time since the war had changed him, and had proved to not.

“Not a drop, as always,” Michel announced triumphantly as he slid Nida's mug slowly across the table. “Impressed, aren't you?”

“As always,” Nida agreed, carefully lifting the drink once it was in reach so he could sip at the hot but not scalding drink just enough to put it down to a lower level. “How have you been doing?”

“Better than you. You look tired. More than tired... Worn,” Michel offered, frowning. The fact that he was avoiding the overly formal and rambling language he used around people he was unfamiliar with or in official situations cheered Nida a little. It was a mark of friendship between them, and something Nida needed right now. 

“I suppose it'd be the best way to put it,” Nida mournfully agreed. “I didn't get much sleep after coming back from...”

“Not even at home? You said the bed there was...”

“No,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Nightmares. I suppose that would be the right term for it.”

“Zale?” Michel asked carefully as he started to uncover the plates and bowls. “It concerns me that you are still having your strange dreams involving him after his death. Is it possible that...”

He didn't finish the thought, likely because of the way Nida could feel himself cringing as the other man spoke. For all that Michel could be straight-forward or ignorant of others' feelings when it came to the immediacy of research, he was still considerate when he needed to be. 

“Can we move on to some more relevant topics? I just got off of five hours with Odine discussing what I fail to remember about the disappearance and getting prodded with all manor of devices. Squall actually had to quietly threaten to break his arm to keep him from drawing yet another vial of blood before we left. So far as we can tell, we got nowhere with what he was doing. We have a better chance with Rinoa due to the Compression itself being due in part to her power. The hope is that you'll figure out more in your field.”

“Well, Odine was always... Brute force over finesse with this sort of thing,” Michel acknowledged as he uncovered the final plate and began to serve himself. “They tell me that you are remembering things. Things you lost to the GFs.”

And here was the reason that Nida was even present in Esthar, much less with Michel. No one thought they were going to find out just what had happened to hi, it was all too strange to explain. There was hope, though, that whatever had triggered the return of even some of his memories could be explained. Well, maybe some of what Squall and the others wanted was more of those memories, and the hope that they could possibly regain something of their own lost childhoods. Nida... Wasn't sure it was worth it.

“Are those reports Sir Leonhart told me about in your bag?”

Nida was happy to avoid the questions long enough to fill his plate and part of his stomach, so he toed the bag he had carried in closer to the scientist. Eagerly Michel went for the bag, pulling out the various files and plopping them down on the table before him, flipping them open between him and his food and letting his eyes flash over them. Meanwhile Nida helped himself to almost the entire plate of fries and a large chunk of the taco casserole that Michel had confided was his own personal recipe. 

“So, you remember where you were born, and your family's names. Not to mention your own. Sheya... It's Centran you know, means 'flying.' I believe it is quite an apt name for you, all things considered. Still, I doubt you're here to hear that from me. How much do you remember that you didn't report?”

Nida looked up from his meal and stared at Michel with a frown. The man hadn't looked up from the files, was still flipping through pages in truth, but the way he asked the question meant he was certain. Well, in matters that related to GFs there really was no point in hiding things from Michel. 

“Everything,” he whispered into his food. Then, with more conviction, “Everything. I remember how my mother wore her hair. I know my father took his coffee with three sugars and a dollop of cream. I know that for my birthday my mother made berry tarts because I liked them. I remember the petunias out by our door. I remember the stories my father told me when I was a child. I remember the ones my mother whispered when father wasn't home. I remember everything. At least, everything I'm sure a person should remember of that age.”

The whole while Michel was silent, watching him carefully and nodding slightly as he listened. When Nida finished the files before him were closed, slid aside, and utterly ignored as if they weren't there. Then he did something Nida wasn't expecting: Michel rose from his seat and strode away. 

“Where...” Nida started to demand as Michel came to a stop beside a desk and pulled open a drawer. What could be so important as to drag the man away from something like this? The man wanted to know this stuff and yet apparently didn't want to hear it. That didn't make any sense at all.

“Ah, here it is,” Michel announced after rooting around in his drawer for a moment. Something was picked out and in triumph the scientist turned around, letting his prize dangle from his hand in a flash of silver. 

For a while Nida only stared. Was it even possible? But no, the chain was familiar, almost identical to the one he already wore around his neck and hung with the mithril wire and bead harp that housed Siren, the Guardian Force with the strongest bond to him and thus assigned to him in her core essence. The harp was her home when he wasn't junctioned, allowing him to maintain his bond and connection to her when he reached for her. Strangely she had basically been silent since his awakening in the ruins of the village he had been born in, something that had worried him to no end. Yet this chain was hung with a different charm, one no less familiar for his more limited experience of the spirit it housed. What other spirit would find its home in the rough shape of a lizard tipped with flames? 

“Salamander?” Nida asked in disbelief for all that he was certain it could only be one thing. “I haven't seen him since...”

“Since the war ended,” Veringas confirmed. “Leonhart gave him over to me after your... trip to the Deep Sea Research Lab. Not the most talkative of spirits, and he has hardly done me much good, but I have a feeling that you could benefit from his return. And before you ask, Squall did me the okay on this.”

It had been a question just on the tip of Nida's tongue as Veringas had approached and held the chain out toward him. The closer the chain and charm had gotten, the more Nida could sense the presence within it. His ears filled with the low crackle of a fire, his skin almost felt warmer, and it almost felt as if Siren herself were also reaching out and wrapping her wings protectively around him. Apparently something in the presence of the ancient fire spirit had awoken Siren from her slumber. 

Maybe it was the fact that Salamander had taken a particular interest in him because the spirit had been possessed for so long by Elijah Zale. Maybe it was because Siren deferred to the elder spirit. Maybe it was because this, like other moments in recent years, was a changing point for him. 

“I can hardly believe you're willing to hand over a GF of Salamander's caliber when he could be so useful for your research,” Nida admitted as Michel deposited both chain and charm into his hands and a rush of warm ran through his body.

“If what Irvine tells me of Mateas is any indication, some of the answers we want and need could come from what you're holding in your hands. After all, they have told far more to you and Irvine than anyone else. To be honest, I've no idea why it is you were able to remember so much. I would have suggested the Compression revealed memories you forgot, but that doesn't account for the time that passed or the reports I heard from Ellone or a lot of other things. Something more complex is going on, has jarred your memories, and I think it has something to do with the GFs and their tie to who you are and are going to be.”

“The prophecies,” Nida grumbled, clutching the charm tightly in his hand to the point where it was almost painful. “That's Irvine, not me.”

“Regardless, there is something important about you,” Michel insisted as he sat back down in his chair and pulled his meal close once more. “And the answers may be there. Just ask him and if he's quiet, we'll eat and try to figure this out on our own.”

With a sigh Nida turned his thoughts inward, reach toward the charm and the burning presence within it. No sooner did he find himself touching the burning essence of the GF than a voice like the roar of a bonfire boomed through his head. 

_The answer is in her words. Find the words and know._

Just as suddenly as the voice was there it was gone, leaving Nida only with the feeling of warmth and a flood of confusion. 

“Well?” Michel asked eagerly, probably having read something in Nida's expression. 

“He knows more than he's willing to say. Maybe it's best if we don't rely on him.”

Michel sighed and nodded. “We've two days to figure out as much as we can, so I guess we best dig in.”


	7. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, yes, but another necessary bridge to be followed by something more substantial.

There was a part of him that couldn't help but wonder just why he kept coming back here. The rational part of his mind would offer up the way the faint perfume of flowers would soothe him whenever he took a deep breath. It would point out the way that being surrounded by nature calmed him in a way he had never been able to put into words. The sentimental part of his mind favored sharing memories of a wonderful time living here before everything had started to go wrong with his life. His days with Daphne, playing catch the chocobo with Ariel every afternoon, and how nice it was when he had picnics with his mother on one of the beaches far out from the town. Yet it was the irrational part that had the problem with standing here on one of the hills overlooking the scenic little village. The irrational part of his mind that replayed his killing of a Zebalgan leader named Joshua who had tried to kill him, the turning away of Elijah for his betrayal, the secrets that were swept along daily in the secretive undercurrent of the polite and quiet face of the villagers. 

“It never really changes, does it?” Kiros asked from where he had stopped at Nida's side to look at the village. 

Yes, it changed. Changed in ways that outsiders like Kiros would never understand, could never understand, because no one would share with them. How was Kiros supposed to know the sense of betrayal that the people of Winhill felt when Andria's name came up in polite conversation? Could he begin to understand the way people he had known since he was a child had come to look at him in that short time he had visited after working at Galbadia Garden? 

“No,” Nida agreed instead, a far easier thing to do than he had expected. “It doesn't. Practically the same now as when I was first brought here as a child.”

Except there were more markers in the small cemetery just outside of the village now... Too many of them recent additions. 

There was something akin to disbelief in Kiros's eyes when the older man looked at him, but Nida just ignored it, adjusting the straps of the duffel on his back as he started down the hill. He managed to make it a few steps before another question from Kiros stopped him in his tracks.

“You're not happy to be here, are you?”

“Why should I be?” he shot back. 

_Many of your happiest memories occur here,_ Siren offered for Kiros, her voice soothing. It was one of the first times she had bothered to speak to him since he had gone to see Veringas. Her timing, as always, was almost frustrating. 

“Where we are from is important to where we end up,” Kiros answered for himself. 

“Is that why you've never returned to Deling?” he countered, turning to meet Kiros's level gaze. “Because of how important it was to you.”

That silenced the man for all of a few seconds, before he sighed and shook his head. “My experiences there shaped me, but...”

“But they broke you as well,” Nida finished for him, unable to avoid the bitterness in his voice. “In a way that was hard to recover from, and even when you did you didn't want to return for fear that it would make it worse in your memories.”

“And you're too young for that kind of experience.”

“Age has nothing to do with it. Surely war taught you that much.”

“And what is it that ruins your home for you?”

It was easier to chuckle, then turn and keep walking, than to answer. After all, Kiros would have a chance to see for himself soon enough. Laguna hadn't let them leave in the unmarked flier they'd left a few miles out of town without insisting that Kiros buy a bouquet and leave it on Raine's grave for him and Squall, which meant that Nida wasn't likely to get the privacy he would have wanted for visiting Daphne. Not to mention... No, not to mention him at all. 

“Squall said something about arrangements for our stay already being handled...” Kiros said a bit later when they finally reached the proper edge of town. Granted, that edge of town was still quite a distance from the area Kiros would have been more familiar with, what with the cottages and flower fields surrounding the village to no small degree. Even here it could take almost half an hour at a leisurely pace to reach the center of the village proper. That being said, they had hit the fields rather close to his cottage, which wasn't really surprising because Nida had been aiming for just that. Things hadn't been... comfortable for him with the villagers since the end of the war. Maybe it was his own fault, but he had a feeling it had to do with Andria's death. After all, it had been his fault in most respects. 

“We won't be staying at the inn if that's what you mean,” Nida answered as he altered their course enough to point them toward the cottage. “Unless you're looking forward to it, that is.”

“What else would we be...”

With a sigh Nida gestured toward the cottage he was making for. “My mother left it to me when she died. I try to keep it in good shape, and a friend of mine helps look after it while I'm out of town. The couch is pretty comfortable, or so I remember. Can't be sure anymore, I haven't camped out on it in years. Still, it's yours if you're looking to save some gil. I'd offer a bed, but I had my childhood bedroom cleaned out during my first trip home after coming to Garden and turned it into a training room. Never really thought I was going to have so many visitors.”

“A couch is fine,” Kiros chuckled quietly. “A lot better than some of the random places I had to deal with while traveling with Laguna. Though I admit that at my age something soft is always appreciated.”

* * * * * *

“So what exactly are we here for?” Kiros asked as Nida dumped a load of pillows and blankets on the couch. “Laguna didn't really explain...”

“And Squall couldn't be bothered,” Nida finished for him with a sigh, shaking his head as he moved toward the kitchen area and twisted a dial on the stove. As expected there was the sound of clicking as he smelled gas, but nothing more. Good, no one had offered his cottage up as a traveler's resting place this time. Siren jumped eagerly at his call, offering up the fire spell so he could light the stove. They didn't have much in the way of supplies, so soup was going to have to do for the night, and breakfast. Truth was Nida hoped the journal would be easy to find, saving him the need to head into the village square to buy supplies. 

“He said it was personal business,” Kiros agreed. “To be honest, I'm surprised I was asked to come along considering that.”

“Well, there is some concern that things will get complicated,” Nida admitted, turning the flames to their lowest possible setting before going for his duffel and fishing out a few cans of soup he'd brought with him from his now emptied apartment. “You were briefed on the situation with the latest dreams?”

“Boyce Megill is supposed to return?” Kiros asked, moving to perch on one of the stools in the kitchen. “Yes, I was there when Laguna was briefed. The concern is that he's going to return to his search for this lost power of Hyne.”

“And we don't know how to find him,” Nida confirmed as he searched out a can-opener. He made it through three drawers unsuccessfully before pulling out the combat knife he wore on his belt and starting into the can like that. “Neither Irvine nor I have had any clues there, and the dreams haven't been too useful in finding out specifics like that in the past. To much vagueness. So Squall had the brilliant idea that, since Irvine is supposed to be fated to find the lost power of Hyne, looking for it should lead us to Megill.”

“So you think something here will help you find...”

“A stone altar,” Nida agreed as he finally worked a lid off and poured the unappetizing glop into the first appropriately sized pot he found. “That's what Irvine says at least. But yes, that's what we're hoping for. Specifically we're here to find something Irvine and I think would be hidden here. A journal from my birth mother, containing the prophecies she made during her lifetime, and maybe those of her ancestors. Apparently his own mother kept one, and while the prophecies are typically more vague and difficult to understand than our own, they might teach us something.”

“So we're looking for a book of prophecies that you may not even be able to understand, in hopes that it will have some clue as to where you might find either Megill or a lost, ancient power of a supreme level that could alter the very face of the world.”

“Pretty much,” Nida sighed as he poured a second can into the pot, turned the heat up a bit, and moved to sit on another stool. “Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?”

“Not the worst reason I've heard to do something,” Kiros admitted, shaking his head. “You've never had to travel with Laguna before. Anyway, do you have any idea of where this journal might be?”

“Not even the faintest,” he admitted, shaking his head. “You'd think I'd have run into it sometime while I lived here. But, for the life of me, I don't remember anything.”

“Parents have lots of little ways of hiding things from their children,” Kiros pointed out. “I'll try and help as best I can. I know some places Ward and I used to hide things from Laguna. Usually whatever book he was reading rather than doing his paperwork.”

Nida resisted the urge to chuckle at the idea of Laguna tearing apart one of the Esthari Presidential Palace rooms searching for some dime-rack novel and failing. “Thanks.”

“But, if you'll forgive me for pointing it out, I still don't understand just why Squall wanted me to accompany you for something as simple as searching for a journal.”

With a sigh Nida stood and returned his attention to the pot of soup, stirring to avoid talking as long as he could. Not that it gave him much time at all. At last there was nothing to do but turn back to Kiros, cross his arms over his chest, and sigh.

“For one thing, Megill does have a bit of a reason to want me dead. He's already tried once. Well, twice if you could both mind control attempts. And... I've been dreaming of someone trying to kill me. The others might be a little concerned about that.”

“I would be in their place,” Kiros agreed, frowning. “I can understand Squall not wanting to make a big deal of your coming out here, and there are hardly many SeeDs he could justify sending with you without it being suspicious. At least Laguna can feign a reason for my traveling here with you, so I guess we'll do what we can. I'll do my best to protect you while I'm here.”

“And I'll try to keep you fed,” Nida answered as he turned the heat off under the soup and found some bowls to spoon it into. 

“Already looks like you're a better chef than Laguna, so things should work out well here.”

* * * * * *

His mother Daphne had always loved sunrise. When he was a child she would always tell him that there was nothing quite so beautiful as those first rays of light washing over the land. False dawn was when birds started to wake up and sing, when the morning glories started to uncurl to greet the sun, and when the valley was painted in the most amazing shades. Nida, for what it was worth, had always been more of a night person, reveling in the twinkling of stars, which often kept him up so long that he rarely managed to see dawn. His time in Garden had changed him of course, because he hadn't had any choice but to be a morning person there. But whenever he came back here he tried to stay up late to see the stars.

And yet, here he was, staring out through the kitchen window sipping at a mug of miserably poor coffee, watching the pale light of false dawn washing across the flower fields. There was nothing he more desperately wanted right now than to be asleep, but Hyne knew that wasn't likely. It wasn't that he didn't feel sleepy, just that he hadn't had a chance to sleep. Not long after finishing their meal they had started searching the house for any sign of the journal that part of Nida was certain had to be here somewhere, to no avail. They'd managed to all but tear the kitchen apart, not to mention the training room that had been Nida's childhood bedroom, not really expecting much in the way of results. Their initial search of the master bedroom had yielded nothing either, but there was still a lot of space to look into, and it was going to take more time than Nida had really expected it to. 

Which left him here, just after false dawn, drinking terrible coffee and trying not to think about how badly he needed to sleep or how much he wanted to avoid heading into the village to buy supplies for a few days. Still, there was something he could get out of the way while Kiros was passed out on the couch and he had every intention of dealing with it while he could. Sighing he put his mug aside and snuck through the living room, grabbing his light coat and knife before slipping out into the early morning chill. It took almost no time at all to cut a handful of the lilies that grew around the edge of the house, enough for a meager momento. Really he should have brought something from Esthar, but it hadn't even occurred to him until they were already in the flier, leaving Nida no choice but to gather the flowers Daphne herself had planted. 

Somehow he managed to make it all the way to the cemetery without thinking. Maybe it was because he was deliberately trying not to think at all. He already knew what he was going to find there, the same marker he'd always found there, this time joined by the marker he'd left behind when he'd last been in town. A crimson sword thrust into the ground behind Daphne's marker, the only marker that Elijah would ever have. Yet for all the times he'd walked there before, this was the first where Nida almost tripped over a marker. The first time that he'd come upon them unexpected. Of course he hadn't really been paying attention to where he had been going. He'd expected to stop naturally when he saw the red blade in the ground. Instead he found himself staring down at the stone with the name of the woman who had been his mother, his hand clenching the flowers so hard he could feel the stems crushing in his grip, and his mind trying to process the lack he felt. 

Where had Elijah's blade gone?


End file.
